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THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2026   |   SPECIAL REPORT & ANALYSIS

SPECIAL REPORT  |  FARM BILL 2.0

Boozman Reverses Course, Adds Year-Round E15 to Senate Farm Bill 2.0

The ethanol sweetener raises the farm bill’s political appeal — but the SNAP compromise, an 11–11 committee and the election clock will decide whether Farm Bill 2.0 beats the Sept. 30 deadline.
 

Analysis  ·  July 30, 2026

Senate Ag Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) is adding permanent year-round E15 legislation to his farm bill, transforming the ethanol provision from a separate legislative effort which was likely to fail into a bargaining chip in the increasingly difficult negotiations over food stamps and the broader agricultural Farm Bill 2.0 package. 

Boozman told Bloomberg Government that the committee had concluded the farm bill was the most appropriate vehicle because lawmakers are running out of legislative time before the Senate leaves Washington at the end of next week. The language is expected to closely resemble legislation sponsored by Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) allowing the voluntary nationwide sale of gasoline containing 15% ethanol throughout the year.

The decision strengthens the bill’s appeal to corn-state lawmakers in both parties. It also underscores how quickly the legislative calendar is closing: E15 supporters no longer believe the House-passed standalone bill can reliably move through the Senate on its own.

E15 gives corn-state Democrats a concrete reason to say yes — but the SNAP cost-share dispute remains the price of their votes, and the clock runs out Sept. 30.

A Reversal Months in the Making

Boozman previously said E15 probably would not be in the farm bill, another example of how you can always discount what a lawmaker says. On June 8, Boozman said he did not expect an E15 provision in the Senate Ag Committee’s legislation because “E15 is really not under our jurisdiction,” referring to the authority of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The original Farm Bill 2.0 discussion draft released June 23 omitted E15.

Boozman had left himself a narrow opening earlier. In March, he said he would be willing to include E15 if the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) signed off on it. His July 30 announcement therefore represents a clear reversal from his June position, although it could be reconciled procedurally if EPW leaders have agreed to the provision or Senate leaders are prepared to manage the jurisdictional issue.

The Bloomberg Law report does not establish that such a formal agreement has been reached. That matters because committee jurisdiction is not an absolute prohibition, but adding legislation outside Agriculture’s normal jurisdiction could lead to additional referrals, objections or demands that the E15 language be modified.

The precise small refinery language also will be important. The House approved its standalone E15 measure 218-203 on May 13, coupling year-round sales with changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard’s small-refinery exemption program. Refinery-state senators have objected to parts of that arrangement. A more refiner-friendly Senate version might attract additional Senate Republicans but would have to be reconciled with the House bill, no easy task. 

SNAP Remains the Deciding Issue

Adding E15 may help Boozman attract farm-state Democrats, but it is unlikely to substitute for concessions on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/food stamps).

Senate Ag Democrats have said collectively that they cannot support the Republican draft unless it addresses the SNAP benefit cuts and the shift of program costs onto state governments enacted in last year’s reconciliation law. Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has discussed delaying the cost shift for one or two years, while other Democratic leaders are pushing for a uniform two-year delay. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has called the delay “a dealmaker and a deal-breaker.”

The stakes for states are substantial. Under the reconciliation law, states must begin paying a share of SNAP benefit costs in fiscal 2028, scaled to their payment error rates, and the federal share of administrative costs drops from 50% to 25% on Oct. 1, 2026. Only nine states beat the 6% error-rate threshold that would exempt them from any benefit match in fiscal 2025, and the national average error rate stood at 10.62% — meaning most states are currently on track to owe the higher tiers shown below.

Table 1. SNAP state cost-share tiers enacted in the 2025 reconciliation law. The highest-error states may delay implementation to FY 2029 or FY 2030. Source: Food Research & Action Center summary of the reconciliation law.

Figure 1. The five largest estimated annual state exposures once the SNAP benefit cost share is fully implemented. Bold black figures show why governors of both parties want a delay. Source: FRAC/CBPP estimates.

Boozman’s immediate committee math makes compromise unavoidable. With Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) absent, Republicans and Democrats are effectively divided 11-11 on the committee. A tie would not be sufficient to report the bill, meaning Boozman needs at least one Democratic vote even before the measure reaches the Senate floor. Boozman now says he shares some of the states’ concerns and is working with Klobuchar on a solution ahead of a markup he hopes to hold Thursday, Aug. 6.

Even if McConnell returns and Republicans can approve the bill on a party-line committee vote, the full Senate presents the same fundamental problem on a larger scale. Republicans hold only 53 seats, while most major legislation requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

The most plausible compromise is therefore not a repeal of SNAP cost sharing but a temporary, uniform delay combined with stronger error-rate reporting, revised data requirements or a phased implementation schedule. That would allow Democrats to say they prevented an immediate shock to state budgets while permitting Republicans to argue that the underlying accountability policy remains intact.

E15 is useful in that negotiation because it gives Klobuchar and other Midwestern Democrats a concrete agricultural achievement to support. But the ethanol provision alone will not unlock their votes while the SNAP dispute remains unresolved.

A Senate Compromise Would Face a Difficult House Vote

The House passed its farm bill 224-200 on April 30, with 14 Democrats joining nearly all Republicans. That coalition is broader than a purely partisan vote, but it was built around leaving the previously enacted SNAP cost shifts largely untouched. The House farm bill itself did not include E15, which was handled in the later standalone vote.

Table 2. Where the two chambers stand on Farm Bill 2.0 as of July 30, 2026.

A Senate bill combining year-round E15 with a limited SNAP delay could still pass the House, but the vote would probably look different.

Some conservative Republicans would likely oppose delaying the SNAP changes, particularly if the delay increases federal spending without an offset. House Ag Chairman GT Thompson (R-Pa.) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would then have to replace those votes with additional Democrats.

That is possible. E15 appeals to members from corn-producing districts, while a SNAP delay could bring in Democrats who opposed the House version. The political formula would be straightforward: Republicans receive E15 and a five-year farm bill, while Democrats receive temporary relief from the state cost shifts.

The greater the SNAP concession, however, the harder the package becomes to sell to House budget hawks. A narrowly tailored one- or two-year delay, rather than permanent repeal, probably represents the outer limit of what could survive both chambers. Finding an offset would improve its House prospects considerably.

The Race Against the Calendar

Figure 2. The Farm Bill 2.0 saga in both chambers, and the deadlines ahead. Navy dots mark House action, blue dots Senate action, gold dots the deadlines that now drive the negotiation.

My assessment is that there is roughly a 75% chance that final enactment slips beyond the Nov. 3 elections, with only about a 25% chance that a complete farm bill reaches President Donald Trump before Election Day.

The committee may still mark up a bill before the Senate leaves on Aug. 7. But committee passage would be only the beginning. Boozman and Klobuchar must settle SNAP, Senate leaders must find scarce floor time, the bill must clear the 60-vote threshold, House and Senate negotiators must reconcile E15 and other policy differences, and both chambers must vote again.

Of note: Congress also faces the Sept. 30 government-funding deadline and competing demands involving Iran, emergency agricultural assistance and other unfinished legislation. The current farm bill extension expires on Sept. 30, 2026 — the same day government funding runs out.

If Nothing Is Agreed to by Sept. 30

If no broader agreement is ready by then, the most likely outcome is another extension attached to a continuing resolution or appropriations package. An expiration without any extension — the so-called dairy cliff and a reversion toward 1930s-40s permanent law — remains the outcome no one in either party wants, which is precisely why an extension is the default.

Figure 3. What happens at the Sept. 30 deadline: the two paths, and the extension options if negotiators come up short. Probabilities are the author’s assessment.

The base case would be a one-year extension through Sept. 30, 2027. Congress has repeatedly relied on one-year extensions, and that approach gives USDA and producers certainty through another crop year while allowing the next Congress to restart negotiations.

A shorter extension — perhaps through Dec. 31, 2026, or March 31, 2027 — is possible if leaders believe a lame-duck agreement is close. Such a bridge would preserve pressure to complete the bill after the elections. But if negotiations remain substantially divided in September, lawmakers are more likely to choose the administrative simplicity of another full-year extension.

A two-year extension appears less likely because it would effectively acknowledge that Congress cannot finish the bill until the next election cycle and would reduce pressure for action in 2027.

Bottom Line

Boozman’s E15 reversal improves the farm bill’s political appeal and confirms that Senate leaders view it as the last available legislative vehicle for ethanol. It does not resolve the decisive dispute. Boozman will almost certainly have to provide Democrats with at least a temporary SNAP cost-share delay, and the size and cost of that concession (and the likely needed budget offsets) will determine whether the eventual package can survive the House. Unless that bargain is struck by early September, another extension — most likely for one year — remains the most probable result. After all, even some White House contacts are calling this the “Do Little Senate.” 

AG POLICY & MARKETS DAILY   |   SPECIAL REPORT  |  FARM BILL 2.0 — THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2026