AGRI PULSE: Opinion: Republicans turned their back on farm country, working people

My grandfather was a farm foreman and did not mince words. When people didn’t hold up their end of the bargain, he had to call it like he saw it – because his family’s livelihood and the farm depended on people doing the jobs they signed up to do. House Republicans’ failure to include farm and family relief and year-round E15 in the government funding bills that just passed through the House of Representatives is proof that they have no desire to do the job they were sent to Washington to do.

Farming isn’t easy work, but it’s honest work. The hours are long, operating costs are increasing and profit margins are tight (when there are profits to be made at all). The Trump administration’s approach to trade has made their work even harder. Tariffs have inflated input costs and shut U.S. producers out of foreign markets and hit working people right in the pocketbook. The cost of groceries has skyrocketed while Republicans have slashed food assistance through their One Big Beautiful Bill. That means fewer Americans buying American-grown food. 

It's a perfect storm for farm families, and Congress had a perfect opportunity to address it: the appropriations package, which passed the House on Thursday. As the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, I put my Farm and Family Relief Act on the table for consideration in the latest spending package and Republicans balked. And I’ve been pushing for year-round E15 since I came to Congress eight years ago. Big Oil stopped it – again.

The Farm and Family Relief Act would have provided an additional $17 billion in economic assistance to America’s farmers who have been crushed by high input costs and market losses due to Trump’s trade wars.

It would have helped hungry Americans afford groceries by scaling back some of the unfunded mandates Republicans made to food assistance in the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

And it would have addressed the root of the problem by ending the worst of the president’s global trade war.

Helping farmers survive these tough times while empowering Americans to buy the food our farmers grow should have been a no-brainer.

Year-round E15 – growing our domestic markets - would be an immediate help to farmers struggling with shifting markets and low profit margins, not to mention it would lower prices for Americans at the pump.

These are common sense policies that would have a real and immediate impact on folks’ lives by supporting struggling farm operations, keeping pantries full and creating new income streams for American farmers.

Instead, Republican leaders in the House refused to include farm or family aid in the funding bills. Oil state Republican senators worked behind the scenes to kill E15, and Midwestern Republicans folded again – all while the White House stayed silent and watched it all happen. Republicans and President Trump really should just stop talking about how much they love farmers at this point. They love Big Oil more.

Instead of walking away with year-round E15, we walked away with a promise by Republican leadership to “study” the issue. Seriously?

Is that the job the American people sent them to Congress to do? I don’t think so.

Meanwhile I’m still working to deliver farm and family aid and year-round E15 because I came to Congress to deliver for our farmers, producers and families. Republicans have made more than enough excuses. Either grow a spine or just admit that you won’t.