In addition, Congress will review the budget, which could have implications for a farm bill.

Congress has until March 14 to finish the appropriations bill or enact another continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown, said Hunt Shipman, principal and director of Cornerstone Government Affairs.

Adding to the complication of the appropriations process is the likely need to provide additional disaster assistance. There’s a lot of controversy brewing in the media about whether there should be conditions on that or whether federal funding for state assistance should be provided, he said.

That could put pressure on whether to just do a year-long continuing resolution this year and punt the disaster issue, he said during a webinar presented by the National Agricultural Law Center.

But it could also increase the likelihood of moving an appropriations bill, or there could be appropriations for some agencies and a continuing resolution for others, he said.

Budget reconciliation

In addition, budget reconciliation has been a hot topic both as a tool to reduce spending and advance policy objective, such as border security, he said.

“I think we can expect attempts to claw back the Inflation Reduction Act funding … in a number of areas, energy being among them,” he said.

When it comes to budget, nutrition programs are always a topic for reform and spending reduction, he said.

“And we may see concern from the Ag Committee about whether any reconciliation instruction that they receive might make it more difficult for them … to pass a farm bill,” he said.

Nutrition provisions

It may be possible that doing the nutrition parts in reconciliation might make it easier to pass a bill because it takes that controversial topic away from the actual farm bill debate, he said.

“There are also procedural challenges to doing anything that’s not directly related to spending in a reconciliation bill,” he said.

So even if the spending parts of the farm bill are handled, there’ll have to be a parallel bill to address policy changes that may not have a direct dollar impact, he said.

Trump’s tariffs would also enter the conversation because Congress is looking at that as a potential way to offset spending or raise additional revenue. If Congress were to legislate those tariffs, it could raise up to $10 trillion, he said.

Intertwined

That has a direct impact on agriculture because a percentage of the funding would be available to USDA for things like offsetting the cost of the school lunch program and purchasing surplus commodities through Section 32, he said.

“So these things become quickly intertwined and complicated,” he said.

As for the farm bill, the most recent extension expires on Sept. 30.

“So whether farm bill is done in reconciliation or stand alone, we’ve got some time to deal with that,” he said.

Sen. John Boozman, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, has said, “We need more farm in the farm bill,’ and he is certain that’ll be evident in the committee’s version of the farm bill, he said.