Inflation Reduction Act Climate and Conservation Funding and What is Means for this Year’s Farm Bill

Marisa Koontz is a law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. She is a guest contributor to this blog. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022, is a budget reconciliation package that provides approximately $770 billion in new spending to reduce the federal government…

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Debt Ceiling Deal Changes SNAP Recipients’ Work Requirements

Marisa Koontz is a law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. She is a guest contributor to this blog. On June 3, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, H.R. 3746 (also known as the debt ceiling deal), into law after weeks of negotiations. These negotiations took place under a pressure cooker…

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Farm Bill Negotiations and the Congressional Budget Office Baseline

Emily Hatch is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. On February 15, 2023, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its most recent budget baseline for “USDA Farm Programs,” which projects a ten-year baseline cost for the relevant farm bill programs of over $1.4 trillion (about $140 billion each fiscal…

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What a Split Congress Means for the Farm Bill

Robert Velazquez is a law student at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and a guest contributor to this blog. Between the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate there are 535 voting members who determine the future and scope of a farm bill. Zippy Duvall, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), recently remarked at the…

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Senate Agriculture Committee Hearing Emphasizes Fair Competition

Emily Hatch is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. On February 9, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry hosted its second hearing on the 2023 Farm Bill, which focused on commodity programs, crop insurance, and credit. In her opening remarks, Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow highlighted the fact that…

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Debriefing the 2023 Food Not Feed Summit

Alyssa Huang is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. This past week students and instructors from Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the Food Not Feed Summit. The Summit was hosted by a growing coalition of organizations across a wide range…

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Midterm Election Results: What They Mean for the Farm Bill

Though control of the House is still up in the air and Agriculture Committee Member Raphael Warnock is headed to a December runoff, we now have a reasonable idea of what the 2022 midterms will mean for the 2023 farm bill. Regardless of the outcome of Warnock’s runoff, Democrats will retain control of the Senate, and Senate Agriculture Committee Chair…

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Recent Senate and House Farm Bill Hearings on Arkansas, Nutrition, Climate, Dairy, and Data Regulation

Samantha Fairbanks and Alex Sadzewicz are students at the University of Maryland Francis K. Carey School of Law. Nathan McMullen and Mariah Campbell are students at the University of Maryland College Park. They are all guest contributors to this blog. School may be out for summer, but Congress is busy with hearings related to the 2023 Farm Bill. This post…

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Federal Legislation Directing Funds into USDA Conservation & Climate Initiatives

Two current big ticket legislative bills – the infrastructure bill and Build Back Better – contain numerous provisions funding conservation and climate-related initiatives that would impact programs within the farm bill. These programs include forest management programs, climate adaptation initiatives, and Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) working lands programs. While the infrastructure bill’s overlap with the farm bill’s environmental programs…

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