Farm Bills: Major Legislative Actions,
1965-2018

Contents

• Timelines for Enactment, Extension, and Vetoes
• Timeline Relative to Fiscal Years
• Timeline Relative to Calendar Years
• Timeline Relative to the Two-Year Congress
• House or Senate Action First
• Short-Term Extensions
• Presidential Vetoes
• Implications for Congress

Summary

The farm bill provides an opportunity for Congress to address agricultural and food issues comprehensively about every five years. Over time, farm bills have tended to become more complicated and politically sensitive. As a result, the timeline for reauthorization has become less certain, and in general recent farm bills have taken longer to enact than in previous decades. Recent farm bills, beginning with the 2008 farm bill (P.L. 110-246), have been subject to various developments that have delayed enactment, such as insufficient votes to pass the House floor, presidential vetoes, and short-term extensions.

The 2014 farm bill took more than 21 months from introduction to enactment and spanned the 112^th and 113^th Congresses. The House rejected a bill in 2013 and then passed separate farm and nutrition assistance components before procedurally recombining them for conference with the Senate. Somewhat similarly, the 2008 farm bill took more than a year to enact and was complicated by revenue provisions from another committee of jurisdiction, temporary extensions, and vetoes.

Whether the House or Senate proceeds first in committee or on the floor is also not always predictable. Both the 2008 farm bill and the 2002 farm bill were extended before their successors were enacted.

In 2018, a farm bill reauthorization was reported from the House Agriculture Committee on April 18 (H.R. 2). An initial floor vote on passage on May 18 failed in the House 198-213, but floor procedures allowed that vote to be reconsidered (H.Res. 905). The House passed H.R. 2 in a second vote of 213-211 on June 21, 2018. In the Senate, the Agriculture Committee reported its bill (S. 3042) on June 13 by a vote of 20-1. The Senate passed its bill as an amendment to H.R. 2 by a vote of 86-11 on June 28, 2018.

This report examines the major legislative milestones for the last 11 farm bills covering 53 years and illustrates trends that may provide useful background and context as the current farm bill debate proceeds.

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The farm bill provides an opportunity for Congress to address agricultural and food issues comprehensively about every five years.¹ Over time, farm bills have tended to become more complicated and politically sensitive. This has made the timeline for reauthorization less certain. Recent farm bills have been subject to developments that have delayed enactment, such as insufficient votes to pass the House floor, presidential vetoes, and short-term extensions.

For example, the 1973 farm bill was enacted less than three months after being introduced. In contrast, the 2014 farm bill took more than 21 months from introduction to enactment, spanning the 112^th and 113^th Congresses.² The House rejected a bill in 2013 and then passed separate farm and nutrition assistance components—the first time a chamber-passed farm bill reauthorization did not include a nutrition title since nutrition became part of the farm bill in 1973. The House later procedurally recombined them for conference with the Senate.

Both the 2002 and 2008 farm bills had expired for about three months (from October through December in 2007 and 2012) before extensions were enacted. In each case, the fiscal year began under a continuing resolution for appropriations. The extensions of the 2002 farm bill were for relatively short periods totaling about five months during final House-Senate negotiations. However, the extension of the 2008 farm bill in 2013 was for a full year, since the 112^th Congress had ended and it was necessary to reintroduce farm bill legislation in the 113^th Congress.

In 2018, a farm bill reauthorization was reported from the House Agriculture Committee on April 18 (H.R. 2). An initial floor vote on passage on May 18 failed in the House 198-213, but procedures allowed that vote to be reconsidered (H.Res. 905). The House passed H.R. 2 in a second vote of 213-211 on June 21, 2018. In the Senate, the Agriculture Committee reported its bill (S. 3042) on June 13 by a vote of 20-1. The Senate passed its bill as an amendment to H.R. 2 by a vote of 86-11 on June 28, 2018. This is the first time since at least 1965 that both chambers completed floor action before the end of June.

This report examines the major legislative milestones for the last 11 farm bills over 53 years, a period representing modern farm bills with growing complexity. It discusses trends that may provide historical perspective as the current farm bill debate proceeds. Table 1 contains a history of major legislative action on farm bills since 1965. Figure 1 shows the dates on a timeline for each farm bill from introduction to enactment. The consequences of expiration of a farm bill,³ as well as its content, are discussed in other CRS reports.⁴

Timelines for Enactment, Extension, and Vetoes

Parts of a farm bill are authorized for a period of fiscal years and therefore expire at the end of the fiscal year (September 30) in the year of the farm bill's expiration. Other parts are authorized for crop years or calendar years. The 2014 farm bill (the Agricultural Act of 2014, P.L. 113-79) generally expires at the end of FY2018 and with the 2018 crop year, which for dairy is the end of the calendar year.

Figure 1. Major Legislative Actions on Farm Bills, 2018-1965

Source: CRS, using http://www.congress.gov.

Timeline Relative to Fiscal Years

Enacting farm bills after the end of the fiscal year (in which a farm bill expired) is commonplace. In the past 53 years, only the 1973 and 1977 farm bills were enacted before the September 30 expiration date for most programs.

Timeline Relative to Calendar Years

Farm bills in 1965, 1970, 1981, 1985, and 1990 were enacted by December 31—within three months of the end of the fiscal year but before spring-planted crops that would be covered by the new law were planted. The most recent four farm bills (1996, 2002, 2008, and 2014) have been enacted later in the year—in April (1996), May (2002), June (2008), and February (2014)—but still prior to the first crop covered by the farm bill was harvested.

Timeline Relative to the Two-Year Congress

Since 1965, eight out of 11 enacted farm bills were introduced in the first session of a two-year Congress (the odd-numbered year); the exceptions are the 1970, 1990, and 2014 farm bills.⁵ The 2014 farm bill, which was introduced in 2012, was the first to start in one Congress, remain unfinished, and require reintroduction in a subsequent Congress. Enactment of the past five farm bills (1990-2014) have been in the second session (the even-numbered year), although, except for the 1990 farm bill, some action had occurred in the prior year. Only the 1970 and 1990 farm bills were enacted after an election during a lame duck Congress in late November.

House or Senate Action First

The House and Senate have taken turns in initiating action on a farm bill. Since 1965, the Senate was first to mark up farm bills in 1973, 1977, 1981, 2012, and 2013. The House was first to mark up bills in 1965, 1970, 1985, 1990, 1995 (and 1996), 2001, 2007, and 2018.

Short-Term Extensions

Extensions of a prior farm bill while its successor is being written have been atypical, though the past two reauthorizations have involved extensions. Only the 2002 and 2008 farm bills have required extensions in 2007-2008 and 2013, respectively, as their successors were being written.⁶

When the 2002 farm bill expired, portions of it were extended six times for less than a year total beginning in December 2007. The first of those extensions continued authority for many expiring programs for about three months.⁷ Because final agreement was pending, five more extensions—ranging from a week to a month—were needed. With a few exceptions, these extensions continued all 2002 farm bill provisions that were in effect on September 30, 2007. Dairy and sugar programs were included, as were price support loan programs for wool and mohair. But the direct, counter-cyclical, and marketing loan programs for the 2008 crop year for all other supported commodities (i.e., the primary supported commodities such as feed grains, oilseeds, wheat, rice, cotton, and peanuts) were specifically not extended.⁸ Moreover, the first extension in December 2007 did not address permanent law, but the second and subsequent extensions in 2008 did extend the 2002 farm bill's suspension of permanent law.⁹

When the 2008 farm bill expired on September 30, 2012, the continuing resolution providing appropriations (P.L. 112-175, §§101, 111) continued discretionary programs, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and certain related nutrition programs. Certain other mandatory programs—such as the Market Assistance Program and the Conservation Reserve Program—ceased to operate insofar as new activity.¹⁰ On January 2, 2013, the entire 2008 farm bill, as it existed on September 30, 2012, was extended for the 2013 fiscal year and the 2013 crop year (P.L. 112-240). This avoided reverting to permanent law for the farm commodity programs, which was imminent for the dairy programs.

The situation from October to December 2013 somewhat repeated the end of 2012. Most of the discretionary parts of the farm bill expired again on October 1, 2013. Some programs ceased new operations, while others were able to continue under appropriations. For SNAP and the discretionary programs, farm bill expiration coupled with the two-week lapse during October 2013 of FY2014 appropriations (the "government shutdown") did create difficulties in operating some farm bill programs. From January 1, 2014, until enactment of the 2014 farm bill on February 7, 2014, the dairy program had technically reverted to permanent law, though federal officials did not implement it, since a conference agreement was imminent.

Presidential Vetoes

Presidential vetoes of farm bills are not common. Since 1965, only the 2008 farm bill has been vetoed as stand-alone measure; it was vetoed twice. A 1995 farm bill was vetoed as part of a larger budget reconciliation package.¹¹

President George W. Bush vetoed the 2008 farm bill (H.R. 2419). When Congress overrode the veto to enact P.L. 110-234, it accidentally enrolled the law without Title III (the trade title). Congress immediately reintroduced the same bill with the trade title (H.R. 6124). President Bush vetoed this version as well, and Congress again overrode the veto to enact P.L. 110-246, a complete 2008 farm bill that included the trade title. The overrides in 2008 were the only time that a farm bill was enacted as a result of a veto override.

President Clinton vetoed a 1995 budget reconciliation package that included the first version of what became the 1996 farm bill, but the veto was not due to the farm bill itself but rather the controversial nature of the reconciliation bill in which the farm bill was embedded.

Implications for Congress

As farm bill reauthorization has tended to become more complex and engender greater political sensitivity, the process of enacting a new farm bill prior to the expiration of the existing law has become more difficult. As stakeholders in the farm bill have become more diverse, more people are affected by the legislative uncertainty around this process. This lack of certainty may translate into questions about the availability of future program benefits, some of which may affect agricultural production decisions or market uncertainty for agricultural commodities.

Author Contact Information

Footnotes

1.	See CRS In Focus IF10187, Farm Bill Primer: What Is the Farm Bill?
2.	These dates span only the official introduction of a bill marked up by committee until the President signed the bill. They do not include background hearings before committee markup, which would extend the timeline.
3.	For example, expiration of the 2008 farm bill as the 2014 farm bill was being developed is discussed in CRS Report R42442, Expiration and Extension of the 2008 Farm Bill.
4.	See CRS Report R45197, The House Agriculture Committee's 2018 Farm Bill (H.R. 2): A Side-by-Side Comparison with Current Law; and CRS Report R44913, Farm Bill Primer Series: A Guide to Omnibus Legislation on Agriculture and Food Programs.
5.	Technically, the bill that became the 2014 farm bill (H.R. 2642) was introduced in 2013 (the first session of the 113th Congress), but many observers consider it a reintroduction of the bills started in 2012.
6.	The 1965 farm bill was extended for one year, but that extension occurred more than a year before expiration and before the reauthorization process had begun in 1970. The 1996 and 2002 farm bills may appear to have been delayed by being reintroduced (1996) or going through the new year into May (2002), but their predecessors did not require extensions. Writing the 1996 farm bill was not pressured by the 1990 farm bill's original expiration date of the 1995 crop year because budget reconciliation in 1993 had extended the farm commodity programs through at least 1996 and, in some cases, the 1997 crops. Writing the 2002 farm bill was not pressured because the 1996 farm bill was to be effective until September 30, 2002, and through the 2002 crop year. In fact, the 2002 farm bill superseded the last year of the 1996 farm bill by beginning with the 2002 crop year.
7.	"Except as otherwise provided in this Act ... authorities provided under the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 ... (and for mandatory programs at such funding levels), as in effect on September 30, 2007, shall continue, and the Secretary of Agriculture shall carry out the authorities, until March 15, 2008." P.L. 110-161, §751.
8.	Other programs that were not included in the extensions were peanut storage payments, agricultural management assistance, community food projects, the rural broadband program, value-added market development grants, federal procurement of biobased products, the biodiesel fuel education program, and the renewable energy systems program.
9.	Permanent law refers to nonexpiring provisions in Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1938 and the Agriculture Act of 1949 that are temporarily suspended by each modern farm bill. The commodity support provisions of permanent law are inconsistent with today's farming, marketing, and trade agreements and potentially costly to the federal government. See CRS Report RL34154, Possible Expiration (or Extension) of the 2002 Farm Bill.
10.	See CRS Report R42442, Expiration and Extension of the 2008 Farm Bill.
11.	Prior to 1965, the first veto of a farm bill was in 1956, when President Eisenhower vetoed H.R. 12, the first version of the Agricultural Act of 1956.