The next farm bill is likely to include changes to the food stamp program, but broad provisions in the House measure to tighten work requirements won’t make the cut in the Senate, anti-spending and food aid proponents agreed.

The Senate cleared a procedural hurdle June 25 by voting 89 to 3 to allow debate to begin on the House farm bill, H.R. 2, and is expected to amend the House measure to include the provisions of the Senate bill, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (S.3042).

The House measure was approved June 21 by the House 213 to 211, following its rejection in May. Now, all eyes are turned to the Senate for action this week on its bipartisan legislation, where lawmakers will battle out issues like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.

Two organizations with strikingly different policy priorities agree the work requirement and job training provisions in the House bill have a very small shot of actually making it into the final measure. Unlike the House bill , it does not include any major changes to the food assistance program.

“I don’t think you’ll see expansion of work requirements,” Josh Sewell, senior policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, told Bloomberg Government. The House farm bill’s proposed work requirements would kick about 1.2 million people off of the program a month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report last month.

WAR OVER SNAP

“It’s too big of a bridge to cross,” said Sewell, who predicts “low hanging fruit” House provisions, like one to create a national clearinghouse to prevent individuals from receiving duplicate food assistance benefits in more than one state will make it through the conference committee.

Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities opposes many of the House provisions, but is supportive of ones to modernize food assistance Electronic Benefits Transfers.

“The big cuts in the House proposal I would hope are something the Senate would not consider,” said Dean, who praised the Senate for its “reasonable” approach to the farm bill.

The farm bill would reauthorize various commodity, trade, rural development, agricultural research, and food and nutrition programs. Under the current farm law (Public Law No. 113-79), program authorizations will expire Sept. 30 or the end of the applicable crop year.

“I like the idea they [Senate] identified issues and came up with common sense solutions, whereas the House is more about broad sweeping proposals that they claim will have big pay offs,” said Dean.

SENATE OUTLOOK

The Senate measure is not completely silent on the food assistance front and does include provisions to authorize several pilot projects, including for job training and income verification, and extends the certification period for elderly or disabled households to three years, instead of two years, if they have no earned income.

The extended certification period could increase SNAP caseload, according to Dean, but not by a huge amount. Currently, the food assistance program serves 42 million people.

Aside from SNAP, other major differences to watch for are conservation provisions and a rule clarifying which types of waters are federally protected.

During Senate farm bill markup June 13 Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) withdrew his amendment to increase the cap on eligible acreage through the Conservation Reserve Program and increase flexibility on the haying and grazing rule, after being promised by Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) he will consider these changes when the bill reaches the Senate floor.

Thune’s amendment would have increased the Conservation Reserve Program acreage cap to 26.25 million acres from 24 million and would ease grazing restrictions on Conservation Reserve Program acreage. The program provides payments to farmers who agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental quality.

Another issue to watch for is the Obama-era Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule, which was repealed in an amendment attached to the House farm bill from Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.).