Grassley doubts Farm Bill will get done prior to new Congress being seated

NEW HARTFORD — With a lame duck session of Congress approaching, Iowa’s senior senator says he doesn’t think anything will get done with the Farm Bill and is optimistic that a new bill can be passed by what appears to be a Republican-controlled Congress next year.

Chuck Grassley says he hasn’t heard of any movement on the bill in the month of October and there won’t be much time to hammer out new legislation.  “We have two weeks before Thanksgiving, we have three weeks before Christmas, and the way Schumer runs the United States Senate, that’s only two and a half days a week. So I don’t see how you get it done, particularly when we have to do the defense authorization bill and all 12 appropriation bills.”

Grassley says with Republicans controlling the Senate and likely controlling the House, there will be some obstacles to overcome but he sees Congress moving forward with a new Farm Bill.   “I would expect it would be easier to get a Farm Bill, but we’ll still have a terrible fight with Democrats giving up any money on food stamps. They don’t agree with us Republicans that say that the actions that Vilsack took during the pandemic to increase over the next ten years an average of $24 billion a year more on food stamps that that shouldn’t snap back to pre-panic levels. They don’t agree with that and that’s where we think we can get some money.”

It appears that Republicans will hold at least a three seat majority in the Senate in 2025.