By Vinnie Trometter, OFRF Policy Manager
It’s September, which means members of Congress are back in D.C. after a month away campaigning for reelection. They have returned to a massive slate of unfinished business and little time to do it before voters hit the polls.
One of the first things Congress did after the recess was pass a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government at current levels until December 11. The CR also included a delay to the implementation of the White House’s proposed rule, which would give political appointees the final say over grant awards. OFRF is happy to see Congress being responsive to the over 160,000 public comments submitted overwhelmingly against the rule, and we hope that the rule is eventually revoked entirely.
However, the White House has found ways to get ahead of Congress through other means. For instance, the House Agriculture Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2027 contains language intended to prevent the closure of the Beltsville Agriculture Research Station. In response, the White House announced in August that it was redirecting all Fiscal Year 2026 funding intended to modernize Beltsville to create new research stations across the country. It remains to be seen how Congress will react, but Congressional appropriators are investigating whether the redirection of funds violates any existing laws.
Another thing that still needs to be done this year is, of course, the Farm Bill. Recapping from an earlier blog post, the Farm Bill failed in the Senate Agriculture Committee at the beginning of August largely because Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was absent, and a compromise that delayed the state cost-share for SNAP was not enough to appease Democrats. It is expected that Senator McConnell will return sometime this month, when the Senate Agriculture Committee will reconvene to pass the Farm Bill out of Committee—without amendments. This would be a bad outcome in terms of organic research because the base text does not go beyond the status quo, which is not sufficient to meet the needs of the growing organic market.
Despite this possibility, the odds of the Farm Bill passing both the House and the Senate as a standalone bill are slim. Thus, another, more likely path is for the Farm Bill to be lumped into a must-pass government funding bill called an omnibus. Senate Majority Leader and member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, John Thune has already spoken life into this possibility. In this scenario, the main unknowns are what pieces of the Farm Bill would be included and whether the pieces left out would be picked up in next year’s new Congress.
There is much yet to be seen. Even yesterday, the House of Representatives cut two weeks from its in-session schedule. This means that after September 17, the House will not return until mid-November. However, rest assured that OFRF’s full-time presence in Washington, D.C., and engagement with our organic allies across the country, make us uniquely positioned to respond rapidly to any development.
Stay up to date with our policy work by signing up for our newsletter:
