House-Passed Budget Reconciliation Package Advances NMPF Priorities
June 2, 2025
House Republicans took key steps in May that advanced dairy policy priorities including several key farm bill items, approving President Donald Trump’s budget plan using the reconciliation process.
The full House voted to pass the large fiscal package on May 22 by a vote of 215-214. Reconciliation allows Congress to enact tax and mandatory spending legislation via a simple majority in both the House and Senate, bypassing the filibuster process in the Senate that makes it more difficult for partisan legislation to pass.
The House Agriculture Committee’s portion of the bill, passed by the committee on May 14, included multiple NMPF-backed priorities that would boost the agricultural economy and provide farmers certainty.
Relevant provisions included:
- Extending the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program through 2031; updating DMC’s production history for participating dairies to be based on the highest production year of 2021, 2022, or 2023; and extending the ability for producers to receive a 25% premium discount for locking in five years of coverage;
- Providing mandatory funding for USDA to conduct mandatory plant cost studies every two years to provide better data to inform future make allowance conversations;
- Folding the remaining Inflation Reduction Act conservation dollars into the farm bill baseline, resulting in increased long-term funding for popular, oversubscribed programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program;
- Doubling funding for critical dairy trade promotion programs that return well over $20 in export revenue for every one dollar invested in the programs; and
- Increasing funding for animal health programs that help to prevent, control, and eradicate animal diseases, such as the outbreak of H5N1 in dairy cattle.
The House Ways and Means Committee also adopted the tax portion of the bill on May 14. The tax package includes critical NMPF-backed language to make the Section 199A tax deduction permanent, which will allow dairy cooperatives to continue either passing the deduction back to their farmer owners or reinvesting it in their cooperatives.
“Whether it’s risk management or tax issues, the stakes are enormous for Congress to get the policy right in this legislation,” said NMPF President & CEO Gregg Doud. “House committees have done good work this week to start major elements of this bill on the right track for dairy farmers and the cooperatives they own.”
The budget reconciliation process now moves forward to the U.S. Senate, where NMPF will push to preserve the agricultural resources and tax policy gains included in the House bill. The Senate is likely to continue the process on the bill when Congress reconvenes in June.
