Bills
| 3.23.22

The Agricultural Act of 2014 (H.R. 2642)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 2642?

(Updated July 18, 2017)

This bill was enacted on February 7, 2014

At nearly one trillion dollars, this bill covers is the primary policy tool for overseeing food, rural development and agriculture. There are $16.6 billion in cuts from the 2008 farm bill (and the last farm bill signed into law), with $8 billion being cut from nutrition and $6 billion being cut from conservation. According to an OreCal analysis,

Nutrition accounts for 79 percent of the spending in the new bill, crop insurance 9 percent, conservation 6 percent, commodity support 5 percent, and all other programs combined 1 percent.

Argument in favor

Argument opposed

Impact

Cost of H.R. 2642

The CBO estimates that direct spending would total $956 billion over the 2014-2023 period, of which $756 billion would be for nutrition programs.

Additional Info

Media:



In Detail:

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's summary, this bill:

  • Repeals Direct Payments and limits producers to risk management tools that offer protection when they suffer significant losses.
  • Limits on payments are reduced, eligibility rules are tightened, and means tests are streamlined to make farm programs more accountable.
  • Strengthens crop insurance, a successful public/private partnership that ensures farmers invest in their own risk management.
  • Provides historic reforms to dairy policy by repealing outdated and ineffective dairy programs. Offers producers a new, voluntary, margin protection program without imposing government-mandated supply controls.
  • Reauthorizes and strengthens livestock disaster assistance.
  • Supports small businesses and beginning farmers and ranchers with training and access to capital.
  • Closes the “heat-and-eat” loophole that artificially increases benefit levels when states provide nominal LIHEAP assistance.
  • Demands outcomes from existing employment and training programs.
  • Prohibits states from manipulating SNAP benefit levels by eliminating medical marijuana as an allowable medical expense.
  • Allows states to pursue retailer fraud through a pilot investigation program and crack down on trafficking through data mining, terminal ID, and other measures.
  • Increases assistance for food banks.
  • Establishes a 10-state pilot to empower states to engage able-bodied adults in mandatory work programs.
  • Prohibits USDA from engaging in SNAP recruitment activities, and advertising SNAP on TV, radio, billboards & through foreign governments.
  • Ensures illegal immigrants, lottery winners, traditional college students, and the deceased do not receive benefits.
  • Ensures SNAP recipients are not receiving benefits in multiple states.
  • Prevents abuses such as water dumping to exchange bottles for cash
  • Consolidates 23 duplicative and overlapping conservation programs into 13.
  • Provides one year of full funding for the Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program, which provides funding for vital services in communities containing federal lands.
  • Provides certainty to forest products industry by clarifying that forest roads should not be treated as a point source under the Clean Water Act.
  • Creates a permanent subcommittee within the EPA Science Advisory Board to conduct peer review of EPA actions that would negatively impact agriculture.
  • Eliminates duplicative reporting requirements for seed importers; requires improved economic analysis of FDA regulations.
  • Fully funds specialty crop industry priorities such as Specialty Crop Block Grants.