I Voted No.
NO on Final Passage of H.R. 2 — Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (Rep. Conaway — Agriculture), which would reauthorize the agriculture and nutrition programs for five years. The last farm bill begins to expire Sept. 30. The most significant changes in the bill would be to SNAP, which would be subject to expanded work requirements, and conservation programs, some of which would be consolidated. The bill would also ease environmental rules for pesticide registrations and certain forest management activities. The changes to SNAP include: 1) turning SNAP into a job training program and paying for the job training by cutting SNAP benefits; 2) increasing the populations that are under increased work requirements; and 3) waiver restrictions.
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Twenty perfect of Central Floridians are currently using SNAP and Florida has the 2nd highest SNAP usage in the U.S. The Farm Bill would cause of a reduction of $100 million per year in Central Florida alone, which totals a loss of 32 million meals per year. Specifically, FL-10 has 54,714 households that receive SNAP — 43.9% of those households have children under 18; 38.3% are 60 years or older; 46.6% have a disabled individual. The average income of FL-10 SNAP recipients is $25,640 and 52.2% of SNAP households have at least one person working within the last 12 months.
The bill was opposed by several group several small government groups, labor groups, environmental groups, and other advocacy groups. The groups opposed were National Farmers Union, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Feeding American, AARP and more. The bill was supported by the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, and several crop insurer groups.
The bill failed, 198–213, with 30 Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition. The House Freedom Caucus led the Republican defections over unrelated procedural motions related to DACA.
