OTTUMWA — One thing Zach Nunn knows for sure is that the next farm bill will be a big one.
What he doesn’t know is when it will emerge and arrive at President Joe Biden’s desk.
Nunn spoke on a few topics following his announcement of a $1 million investment in Indian Hills Community College’s truck driver program Monday. The first-term Republican from the state’s 3rd Congressional District, who is facing Democrat Lanon Baccam in a re-election bid in November, is proud of what he’s accomplished.
However, the farm bill, which expired in 2023 and was extended for one year, remains a work in progress.
“We’ve had multiple listening sessions from Iowans in all 21 counties,” he said. “I want to make sure we keep actual farm in the farm bill. The senate hasn’t moved anything, and I’m very frustrated with that because they haven’t taken this as a priority. It only happens once every five years.”
Nunn touted that the House Agriculture Committee, which Nunn is a member along with 4th District congressman Randy Feenstra, worked in a bipartisan manner to pass a House version of the bill.
“We got things really moving forward, and I feel like we’ve got a good roadmap,” he said. “But whatever happens past November, if some of those chair people in the Senate don’t have jobs anymore, maybe they’ll come to the table to actually move the farm bill forward.”
If Congress can’t get one through, Nunn said, then “we’re looking at a 1930s-style farm bill.” However, he doesn’t see that happening.
“I’m confident we’re going to get there. No one said we could get this far,” he said. “I believe, you know, the lame duck session might prove to be a very pragmatic session for both the House and Senate.”
Still, Nunn hoped the bill would have been done last year when the 2018 bill expired.
“My perspective was I came in very hot and that we needed to get this done last August,” he said. “While I don’t want us to slow this process down, I want to make sure first and foremost that farmers are taken care of. Right now they are, but I plan for another short-term extension, and then a renewal of a five-year bill.
“There’s no time like the present to be active.”
Nunn also discussed the recent Supreme Court ruling that granted presidents immunity from the law if what they were doing were official acts of the job.
“No one is above the law. When you’re president, there are certain elements that you’re going to take under your responsibility, and with that you have protections for the office,” he said. “We’re going to have to see what the lower courts say, but both the majority and minority believe we’re going to need some clarity.”
Nunn also discussed the stresses placed under local pharmacies, which have struggled to make a profit because of third-party middlemen.
“These folks in the middle are seeing a larger profit, and they’re not returning that back to the patient for customer care, and then they’re also making it harder for our local pharmacies to stay open,” he said. “Pharmacies provide more than just prescription drugs; they provide everything that a mainstream community is going to do.
“But the second part of that is about what we can do for telehealth medicine so that patients, in both rural Iowa and urban communities, get the health care when and where they need it, at least on the front end, and help expedite the prescription process. But the pharmacies and the patient need believe we’re going to move legislation, and it’s one of the things we’re working on in the House Financial Services Committee.”
