By Cheryl Ruble, volunteer with the Michigan Chapter and Sierra Club Grassroots Network Food and Agriculture Team
Sadly, the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, H.R.7567 (farm bill), passed the U.S. House on April 30 by a vote of 224 to 200. Fourteen Democrats voted yes, including Michigan’s Kristin McDonald Rivet, one of seven Democrats who helped move the bill out of the House Committee on Agriculture. Three Republicans voted no on the floor.
Debate over the farm bill now moves to the Senate, where Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin serves on the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Read about this important legislation below and contact Sen. Slotkin and Sen. Gary Peters to urge them to hold firm on improving this legislation.
The Food and Agriculture Team learned during our April 13 to 15 D.C. lobby event that movement on the House Farm Bill was a matter of when, not if, but we did not expect things to happen as quickly as they did. Based on the recommendation of Geoff Horsfield with the Environmental Working Group, we met with staff for Reps. Hillary Scholten and Haley Stevens because their votes were uncertain. We are grateful that both Reps. Scholten and Stevens voted no.
The pesticide poison pill is out, thanks to the MAHA movement and the Luna-Costa amendment, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.). Unfortunately, the House Food Security and Farm Protection Act, better known as the EATS Act/Save Our Bacon Act, language is still in. The House Committee on Rules did not even allow a vote on removing it, despite bipartisan opposition to that poison pill.
The pesticide provisions would have shielded pesticide companies from lawsuits and pre-empted states from enacting protective pesticide legislation.
EATS Act piece:
“Another source of conflict emerged over the ‘Save Our Bacon Act,’ a provision that barred states from regulating livestock production in other states, pushed by the pork industry after the Supreme Court upheld a California law creating minimum space requirements for livestock.
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers had proposed stripping the provision from the bill, but Republican leaders rejected their efforts.”
Source: NYT
This provision will override state animal protection laws like California’s Prop 12 and Michigan’s cage-free law.
The House farm bill picks up where the One Big Beautiful Bill left off, permanently reducing Nutrition Title (SNAP) funding and decoupling it from the Farm Bill. It will be up to the Senate to address the SNAP piece.
In a statement issued by Senator Klobuchar (MN-D), who is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and Senate Democrats have drawn a line in the sand over SNAP. We have heard that Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, would be content to cut and paste the House Farm Bill. Hopefully, Klobuchar and the other Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee will hold firm.
The concern, based on our lobby event intel, is that now that House Democrat dominoes have toppled, Senate Democrat dominoes could follow.
Conservation Title piece:
The House Farm Bill largely preserves the $20 billion in IRA funding for USDA conservation programs that was incorporated into the baseline through the One Big Beautiful Bill (reconciliation) with climate guardrails removed. EQIP lost $1 billion in funding:
“The highly popular Environmental Quality Incentives Program would lose around $1 billion in budget authority over the next four fiscal years under the House Agriculture Committee's GOP farm bill draft, according to calculations by the Congressional Budget Office. EQIP was essentially used as a funding source for other priorities in the legislation.”
Source: Agri-Pulse
There is concern about how those funds will be allocated within the conservation programs, but those details are probably best hammered out later once the Senate introduces its version of the farm bill.
The E15 ethanol year-round sale issue:
Apparently, the House Farm Bill cannot be sent to the Senate until a stand-alone bill on the year-round sale of E15 ethanol-gas mixtures is put to a vote.
“Republican leaders agreed to tack onto the farm bill a plan to allow year-round sales of E15 earlier this week, leading to an uprising of oil state lawmakers who oppose the E15 plan. Leaders agreed to decouple the farm bill and E15 in the coming weeks and hold a standalone vote on E15 on May 13 — though that means the House’s farm bill can’t be sent to the Senate until that time.”
Source: Politico
"An extended fight over a provision allowing for the year-round sale of an ethanol blend known as E15 nearly derailed the bill. The Trump administration and lawmakers representing districts that produce corn and other crops, which are used to make ethanol, have cast the move as a way to ease pain at the pump. But small oil refineries and their allies in Congress, as well as deficit hawks, opposed the move. After hours of delay and disagreement, lawmakers agreed to extract that provision from the farm bill and vote on the issue later this spring."
Source: NYT
There is a good reason that E15 sales are restricted in the summer:
“E15—a fuel blend of up to 15% ethanol and 85% gasoline—generally cannot be sold during the summer driving season (June 1–September 15) because it does not meet gasoline Reid vapor pressure (RVP) requirements, which limit fuel volatility under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The statute allows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator to issue a temporary fuel waiver of these requirements (42 U.S.C. §7545(c)(4)(C)(ii)) under certain conditions. On March 25, 2026, EPA issued the first nationwide fuel waiver for the 2026 summer driving season. The waiver allows E15 to be sold during the summer driving season, in part, to address extreme and unusual fuel circumstances that EPA states are "the result of ongoing issues in the Middle East, among other events." EPA also states its "intention to issue new waivers effectively extending (renewing) these waivers until such time as the … circumstances described in this action are no longer present.”
Source: Congress.gov
A lot still has to happen before we have a new Farm Bill. This site has a nice diagram depicting the entire Farm Bill legislative process. I personally hope that the process drags out past the midterm elections and that the Dems gain control of the House and Senate, putting them in a better negotiating position. My fear is that the Dems will succumb to the fear-based messaging by the Republicans that farmers are struggling because of the delay in passing the Farm Bill, rather than acknowledging the broader pressures facing agriculture, including this chaotic administration, the war in Iran, and other destabilizing factors..
This Farm Bill will make things worse, not better.
Find out more about Sierra Club’s positions on reauthorizing the farm bill at these links.
Build a Better Farm Bill 2023 - 2026