WASHINGTON — At long last, a farm bill has cleared the U.S. House of Representatives, but without a provision pushed by crop growers and ethanol producers.

The Republican-crafted legislation passed on Thursday, April 30, in a 220-200 vote on what has historically been bipartisan legislation for farm country. The massive omnibus bill gives $1.4 billion in funding for everything from subsidies for crop insurance to safety nets such as SNAP and conservation programs.

The bill is typically passed every five years, but the legislation has largely been on extension since 2023. And it was not a sure thing that the bill would get a vote before the congressional recess.

In negotiations to get it to the floor, farm lobbyists sought to include language codifying year-round E15 ethanol blends. But that language was never included.

In a show of force, many Republican adherents of the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement teamed with almost all the chamber’s Democrats to strip measures from the bill’s text that would’ve made it difficult for state regulators to individually label pesticides.

The bill also includes language that preempts a California law that mandates larger crates for pigs in barns, regardless of the state the animals are raised in — a provision that is likely to face roadblocks in the Senate.

Minnesota’s eight-member House delegation split along party lines for their votes.

Rep. Brad Finstad — a Republican who represents a broad swath of southern Minnesota and is on the agriculture committee — acknowledged what he called “compounding challenges” but said the legislation is the biggest boost to farm country since the 2002 farm bill.

As far as the E15 issue, Republican leaders decided to hold a separate vote on year-round use when Congress comes back from recess in mid-May.

Right now, the law prohibits that high of an ethanol blend in the summer season. The Trump administration has approved a waiver allowing it for 2026 — extending a waiver that some states including Minnesota have had for several years.

But to extend the nationwide use, Congress must act.

In floor debate before the final vote on Thursday, Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig — a Democrat who represents a hybrid of Twin Cities suburbs and farmland in southern Minnesota — hammered the bill for not including a year-round E15 provision.

“We could expand our domestic markets in this country today,” Craig said. “But we’re going to take (the proposal) away and, ‘Oh, we’ll come back in two more weeks.’”

Craig, the ranking Democratic member on the House Agriculture Committee, cited rising costs on fertilizer and diesel, as well as a spike in farm bankruptcies, while casting doubt on the likelihood that a May 13 vote on E15 would happen.

Craig also cited a January report from the Farm Bureau that producers have lost over $50 billion over the last three crop years due to low commodity prices and high input costs.

Ag committee Chair Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, knocked Craig, saying she was pillorying the bill because it made good politics in her U.S. Senate campaign, where she is seeking the DFL nomination against Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.

Oil refineries, particularly smaller and mid-sized facilities, have opposed higher ethanol blends, saying it drives up their costs.

A top interest for Minnesota corn farmers — a $13 billion industry — is the fate of year-round E15. While Minnesota gas stations are already allowed to sell higher ethanol blends at the pump year-round, an industry study projects E15 would bring nearly $14 billion more for America’s corn farmers.

Minnesota Farm Bureau President Dan Glessing, a Waverly farmer, said he was hopeful for the E15 expansion. He encouraged all of Minnesota’s members to vote “yes” on the overall bill.

“Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress and the certainty that this will bring for farmers,” he said.

As far as the pesticide regulation change, the farm bill had included a ban on state-by-state regulation of pesticide labels. The MAHA-Democrat coalition fought for that provision to be removed, and in negotiations, it was.

Opponents have disputed links between many agricultural pesticides and human illness. But the coalition took on the fight for transparency of information.

“We don’t want to ever be on the side of cancer-causing anything,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who received high-fives from fellow members on Thursday after her amendment’s passage.

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