20
May
Congressional Republicans Seek To Gut SNAP; USDA Brings Back Climate Data after Lawsuit Filed
(Beyond Pesticides, May 20, 2025) In the same week, Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee in a straight party-line vote moved forward a proposal to gut U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) supplemental food program for low-income people, and USDA reversed course after the filing of a federal lawsuit spearheaded by farmers and environmentalists argued that the agency had illegally deleted climate data from its website in violation of several federal statutes. (See New York Times reporting here.) The Republican budget proposal (see full text here) for the next fiscal year, which will strip $300 billion in USDA funding, is proposed in President Trump’s “skinny budget†proposal. Throughout the past few months of uncertainty, a robust coalition of farmers, farmworkers, businesses, lawyers, public health professionals, and environmentalists has continued to fight for holistic food systems reform and protection of organic standards.
Budget Reconciliation and Preemption Review
The House GOP met for markups on May 12-13 to approve the agricultural portion of the proposed Reconciliation package before a full vote on May 16. The legislative language, passed along party-lines [29-25] in the agriculture committee, is considered “the largest overhaul in decades to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps more than 42 million people in the U.S. pay for food, by forcing states to share the cost of SNAP benefits[,]†according to Politico. The bill guts the SNAP program to increase support for commodity crops and crop insurance programs, circumventing the policy debate associated with the adoption of a Farm Bill, which addressed critical programs, including SNAP, crop insurance, conservation, rural development, specialty crops, and a range of programs such as the National Organic Program. It remains to be seen whether there will still be a full Farm Bill before the September 30 deadline when the extension of funding at 2018 levels expires. “GOP leaders have privately conveyed to members that the Senate is unlikely to approve the SNAP plan,†according to Politico coverage the same day that the agriculture package was approved. “It could also be held up in litigation.â€
After a brief revolt by four members of the House GOP—U.S. Representatives Chip Roy (R-TX), Josh Brecheen (R-OK), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), and Ralph Norman (R-SC)—on Friday (May 16) that initially prevented the Reconciliation bill from moving forward, House Speaker Mike Johnson also reported to Politico Sunday evening (May 18) that “minor modifications” were made to the bill in order for it be successfully voted out of the House Budget Committee. The next stage is for the bill to be up for a full House vote by this Thursday (May 22) to pass the megabill before the Speaker’s goal of Memorial Day weekend.
At this stage, there are no indications that federal preemption language was included in the GOP plan. If there is a full Farm Bill, there is a higher likelihood that preemption language from the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act or EATS Act (re-introduced as the Food Security and Farm Protection Act on April 8) will be included, given the current balance of Congress. Pesticide manufacturers, including Bayer-Monsanto, have been ramping up their federal lobbying efforts after failing to pass state legislation in nine of the twelve states that give the pesticide industry immunity from failure-to-warn litigation filed by those who charge that manufacturers do not provide adequate disclosure of product hazards. Generally considered to be Republican strongholds, states where bills were filed in 2025 include Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Bayer went so far as to set up a promotional installation (see here for Civil Eats video) in Washington D.C.’s Union Station to spread their talking points on the safety of the weed killer glyphosate (Roundup) and fearmongering that food prices will increase if they do not receive legal immunity from failure-to-warn claims.
For more history, see previous Daily News on Farm Bill and preemption here, here, here, here, and here. See the Failure-to-Warn and Pesticide Immunity Bill resource hub for additional context.
Earthjustice Climate Data Lawsuit Win
The lawsuit, filed by the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) New York and environmental groups, with Earthjustice and Knight First Amendment Institute (Columbia University) serving as counsel, achieved its goal when USDA restored climate-related datasets and webpages on May 12.
“Shortly after filing the lawsuit, the plaintiffs moved the court for a preliminary injunction, which sought a court order requiring USDA to restore the removed webpages and preventing USDA from taking down additional climate-related information,†according to an Earthjustice press release highlighting the legal victory. “Days before that motion was set to be heard in federal court, USDA reversed course. In a letter filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, USDA now says that it ‘will restore the climate-change-related web content that was removed post-inauguration’ and that it ‘commits to complying with’ federal laws governing its future ‘posting decisions.’ USDA also says that it has begun restoring climate-related webpages and expects to substantially complete the restoration process in approximately two weeks.â€
“On January 30, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ordered its staff to ‘identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change[,]’†reads the complaint filed on behalf of NOFA-NY, Environmental Working Group, and Natural Resources Defense Council. “Within hours, and without any public notice or explanation, USDA purged its websites of vital resources about climate-smart agriculture, forest conservation, climate change adaptation, and investment in clean energy projects in rural America, among many other subjects. In doing so, it disabled access to numerous datasets, interactive tools, and essential information about USDA programs and policies.â€
The websites purged of climate data include the general USDA website, as well as dedicated pages for the Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Farm Service Agency, USDA Rural Development, and Farmers.gov. Listed in the lawsuit are several examples of purged data sets that farmers rely on, including the now-removed “Climate Risk Viewer†– a geospatial tool often leveraged to “[a]ssess the impacts of climate change on wilderness areas and wild and scenic rivers,†“[h]ighlight watersheds where future predicted climate change and demands on water supply will be the greatest,†and “[i]dentify areas where mature and old-growth forests on Forest Service . . . lands are most threatened by future climate change.†Vital information for financial and technical assistance has also been scrubbed, including webpages on the Climate-Smart Agriculture and Farm Loan Programs, which explained specifics on “how the programs work, specified loan purposes and amounts, and provided examples of covered activities.â€
The lawsuit alleged the violation of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
In terms of alleged PRA violations, the plaintiffs allege that USDA “provided no advance public notice before removing these webpages or rendering them inaccessible, it failed to comply with its obligation under the PRA to ‘provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information dissemination products.’â€
Regarding APA violations, the plaintiff alleged that “[b]y removing webpages from its websites solely because they focused on climate change, by failing to consider the significant public reliance on those pages, and by failing to provide any justification for doing so, USDA took agency action that was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or not in accordance with law, in contravention of the APA.â€
See the previous Daily News, Earthjustice Lawsuit Seeks to Defend Organic Farmers as Federal Funds Are Cut and Programs Eliminated, for further information.
Call to Action
Amid the ever-growing body of evidence on the adverse health, ecological, and economic impacts of synthetic pesticides and chemicals, now is the time to tell your Congressional Representative and Senators to co-sponsor key marker bills in support of organic agriculture. (See here.)
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Sources: Earthjustice, Politico, House Agriculture Committee
