Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays spoke with Congressman Frank Lucas (OK-03), Senior Republican on the House Agricultural Committee about the current state of the Farm Bill, projected outcomes of the Chevron Deference decision, and the how politics affect each of these things. Hays and Congressman Lucas spoke on the last day of the House being in session ahead of the August Work period, with the House now out of Washington until after Labor Day.
Farm Bill Update:
While the Farm Bill passed successfully through the House Ag Committee, it seems to be hanging in neutral ever since. As to the chances of its advancement, Congressman Lucas admitted that, as an Oklahoma wheat farmer, he is an eternal optimist.
He said, “I’ve watched Chairman [Glenn] Thompson for some days individually work the 400 plus members of the United States House on the Bill on the floor.”
Congressman Lucas explained that the hindrance isn’t only the disagreements between Democrats and Republicans about where the SNAP program should go, but floor time has been consumed by the Appropriations process. He also said that it would help if the Senate Ag Committee would mark up a bill and then work to get it through the full Senate.
The House will break up for the month of August to work and will reconvene after Labor Day. Congressman Lucas is hopeful that momentum will build up enough to get things moving when they return to the House.
“We had a hearing this week about why a Farm Bill is needed in the House Ag Committee. We had a hearing this morning about why we need the commodity futures trading commission reauthorized. We are trying to build a case to get people to focus on farm policy here,” Congressman Lucas explained.
About a recent hearing concerning the current climate of the agricultural community, Congressman Lucas said, “It is projected that this year will be the second decline in farm revenue. That’s frightening. It was also made obvious to anyone who had not paid attention that the reference prices, the safety net, the price protection programs, have not changed since 2014. Think about inflation, COVID, and the trade wars that have gone on in the last decade. That safety net is dramatically less valuable now because of those kinds of things.
“In Chairman Thompson’s mark, the bill we passed out of Committee, there is a range of anywhere from approximately twenty percent or more of upward adjustment in the reference prices. Glenn and the committee are trying to make something happen, but we have to get other people in the Federal Government to pay attention to why it is important to happen.”
To pay for these adjustments, Chairman Thompson’s markup suggested that certain resources be shifted, and uses money from the Commodity Credit Corporation. The bill is getting pushback from Democrats who want the SNAP program not only to increase over the next five years at a rate to match the cost of inflation, but also to dramatically increase other feeding programs by twenty or thirty percent, but Congressman Lucas said that they don’t really have a plan to pay for it.
“We have differences of opinion, but that’s why the bill needs to come to the floor. To let the whole body work it out,” he said.
Although the House of Representative will be very focused on funding the Federal Government on October 1, Congressman Lucas said that there will be time for the Ag Bill to reach the floor in September, or if not then, after the General Election in November.
Congressman Lucas emphasized, “The Farm Bill that the House passed is not reinventing the wheel. It is making adjustments in the numbers to reflect the changes that have gone on in the last ten years. I would advocate that if we can get a product across the floor of the House before mid-December, it would compel the Senate to respond and take action.
“However, when things start to move, they will move rapidly, as the political stomach turns. We just have to have patience and keep working at it.”
Chevron Deference Supreme Court Ruling
The Chevron Deference is a concept born out of a Supreme Court Decision in 1984. The decision determined that if Congress passes statutory language that is ambiguous or vague, the federal administrative agencies have the right, or deference, to make any reasonable interpretation of that language. The result was a very swift and decisive increase in rulemakings generated from the administrative agencies, and also in the breadth of those rulemakings, which went against the original intentions of Congress.
The majority decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts put a stop to the Chevron Deference as the court acknowledged that in order to be sure that lower courts and administrative agencies would no longer feel that they could use the concept, they had to make a formal ruling.
“[The Chevron Deference Supreme Court Ruling] restores the traditional legislative responsibilities of Congress,” Congressman Lucas explained.
He said that while it will slow the legislative process down, it will make legislators more methodical and thorough in their policies. The accountability it adds to House Members and Senators is in the best interests of all citizens.
“Whether it is a bill in the Science Committee, the Ag Committee, or Financial Services, it has to be spelled out thoroughly and completely,” Congressman Lucas said. “If you go back and look at the legislation before the 1960s, the laws were dramatically simpler. They were easier to understand, and there’s nothing wrong with going back to those legislative principles now.”
Politics Today:
Recent events in the presidential campaign from Former President Trump’s near assassination to President Biden backing out of the race so near the election have created a unique political environment as the general election approaches.
Congressman Lucas recalled his elders discussing the 1968 presidential campaign. “In my lifetime and memory, there has never been anything like this year,” he said. “This chain of events is wilder than anything I can remember in my lifetime. It now puts us in a position where I think we are heading towards a change in administration, as we have been for some time, but what a roller coaster ride its going to be for the next few months.”
He said that the Republican’s plan to keep the majority in the House of Representatives is to focus on whether or not voters wish to continue the policies of the Biden Administration because by keeping his Vice President, they would keep his appointees and his focus.
“Give me the former president’s Secretary of Ag, Director of the EPA, and Secretary of the Treasury,” Congressman Lucas compelled. “If we change the administrations, then we change the Bureaucrats and enforcers, and that really needs to happen.”
He added, “I want the American public, whatever they decide to do, to give us a clean winner with solid majorities in the House and the Senate. I want to be a Chairman one more time, as opposed to being a ranking member, but the public has to decide where we go. This barely balanced government we have built for the last two years has just led to gridlock.”
Congressman Lucas won the primary and will have no opponent in November. When Hays asked whether Lucas was confident that he would remain in the House Agricultural Committee should the Farm Bill be delayed until 2025. Congressman Lucas responded, “Yes. I’m not leaving the Ag Committee again. The minority leader at the time who compelled me to step off of one of my three committees is not here anymore. I will be on the Ag Committee until this Farm Bill process is done no matter what.”
Congressman Lucas is also involved in a four-way race to be Chairman of the Financial Services, and of that he said, “Our folks back home need to understand that it is the committee with jurisdiction over the cost of and the availability of credit.” He detailed that Oklahoma’s third district, which he represents, is agriculture, oil, main street, and manufacturing and those businesses run on credit. “How available that money is and what we have to pay for it makes the life-or-death difference business-wise for us,” he explained. “That is where I’m headed, to the Chair of the Committee with influence over the cost of and the availability of credit.”
