A bill to amend the Federal Crop Insurance Act to limit the overall rate of return for crop insurance providers and remove the requirement of budget neutrality in the Standard Reinsurance Agreement.
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
This bill amends the Federal Crop Insurance Act to modify the requirements for the federal crop insurance program. The bill: (1) limits the average rate of return for reinsured companies for the 2018 reinsurance year and each subsequent reinsurance year to 9.6% of retained premiums, and (2) eliminates the requirement that any renegotiated Standard Insurance Agreement (SRA) be budget-neutral.
(The SRA is an agreement between the Department of Agriculture [USDA] and the private companies that administer the federal crop insurance program that specifies details such as administrative and operating expense reimbursements and risk sharing. Eliminating the budget neutrality requirement permits USDA to use the renegotiation of the SRA to achieve savings.)
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on September 7, 2017. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on September 7, 2017: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 115th Congress (2017-18), 442 of the 11,421 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.9 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
JEFF FLAKE (R-AZ) introduced it on September 7, 2017, and 1 member has since signed on as a cosponsor.
They are 1 Democrat.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on September 7, 2017, 3290 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 3290 days ago, on September 7, 2017.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 115th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2019 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers