Will Lawmakers Approve Another Extension?

The House is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a Senate-passed bill to keep USDA and other federal departments operating into the new fiscal year on October 1st. There’s little time to haggle over bill differences and risk a shutdown before the midterm elections, so House Republicans will put the Senate-passed stopgap on the House floor.

“The short-term funding bill that was sent over by the Senate, the continuing resolution that would fund the government through December 11th," House GOP Whip Tom Emmer told Fox News. "That’ll be a priority over in the House.”

The Senate Needs To Get Something Done

Preventing a shutdown will avoid interruptions of farm loans, conservation payments, research, rural development, crop reports, and more. The stopgap specifically continues funding for WIC and food donation programs. SNAP funding would also continue.

Emmer, in the meantime, blames the Senate for inaction on Iran war funding paired with $12 billion in new farm aid and a voter ID-citizenship bill.

“And we sent over, obviously, Reconciliation 3.0, which is also just sitting there in the Senate. It really is going to be on the Senate’s shoulders to start getting something done when we get back.”

The Senate is out until September 14th, when Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, recovering from a fall and mild pneumonia, could be back to break a tie farm bill committee vote.

Democrats opposed to SNAP state overpayment penalties could still filibuster the bill on the Senate floor. The House passed its Farm Bill in April, but short of enactment, a fourth extension of the 2018 law would be needed by September 30th.