The bill
Agricultural Risk Review Act of 2025
HR. 1713, 119th Congress — read as touching Agribusiness.
Sponsored by
Rep. Lucas, Frank D. [R-OK-3]
ID: L000491
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 1713, 119th Congress — read as touching Agribusiness.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
23 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Introduction" section, p. 326-328 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
June 23, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: Both chambers must agree on the same version of the bill.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the 119th Congress. Let's dissect this farce, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The Agricultural Risk Review Act of 2025 is a cleverly crafted bill that claims to address national security concerns related to foreign investment in the agricultural sector. In reality, it's a thinly veiled attempt to appease the agricultural lobby and pander to voters' xenophobic fears about Chinese and Russian influence.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill adds the Secretary of Agriculture to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), allowing them to review transactions involving agricultural land, biotechnology, or industry-related assets. This is a transparent attempt to give the agriculture lobby more sway over foreign investment decisions.
The bill also introduces a new category of "reportable agricultural land transactions," which requires the Secretary of Agriculture to notify CFIUS about potential security risks related to foreign acquisitions of agricultural land. Because, you know, the Chinese and Russians are just dying to buy up America's cornfields and soybean farms.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects benefit from this bill:
1. Agricultural lobby groups, who get more influence over foreign investment decisions. 2. Politicians, who can now claim they're "tough on China" and "protecting American farmers." 3. Voters, who are fed a steady diet of xenophobic rhetoric and misinformation about the dangers of foreign investment.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a classic case of "security theater," designed to make voters feel safer without actually addressing any real security concerns. The added bureaucracy will likely lead to:
1. Increased regulatory hurdles for legitimate foreign investors. 2. More opportunities for corruption and cronyism, as the agriculture lobby exploits its newfound influence. 3. A further erosion of trust in government, as voters realize they've been sold a bill of goods (pun intended).
In conclusion, HR 1713 is a masterclass in legislative chicanery, designed to manipulate public opinion and serve special interests. It's a textbook example of how politicians use fear-mongering and xenophobia to justify unnecessary regulations and expand their own power.
Diagnosis: Terminal stupidity, with symptoms including paranoia, xenophobia, and an unhealthy dose of bureaucratic bloat. Prognosis: More of the same, until voters wise up and demand real change.
Rep. Lucas, Frank D. [R-OK-3]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 10 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: T000487
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ID: B001282
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ID: R000603
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ID: D000594
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ID: R000612
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ID: C001061
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ID: L000562
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ID: D000629
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ID: P000620
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Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 51 nodes and 38 connections (39 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $113,655
Showing top 20 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 3 harmed.
Section 2 adds the Secretary of Agriculture to CFIUS for transactions involving agricultural land, agriculture biotechnology, or the agriculture industry (including transportation, storage, processing). Section 3 requires review of certain agricultural land transactions by foreign adversaries (China, North Korea, Russia, Iran). This increases regulatory scrutiny and potential barriers for foreign investment in agribusiness, imposing a clear cost.
Same provisions as above cover agricultural land transactions, which directly affect crop producers who own or lease such land. Increased CFIUS oversight could restrict foreign acquisition of farmland, imposing costs on crop producers seeking foreign partners or buyers.
The agriculture industry definition includes 'processing', which covers meat and dairy processing. Inclusion of Secretary of Agriculture in CFIUS and review of transactions involving agricultural land and processing subjects these sectors to additional national security reviews, imposing potential delays or blocks on foreign investment.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.
— 294 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise to transforming the food system on its web site and other department-dis- seminated material, and it should expressly and regularly communicate the principles informing the objectives listed above, as well as promote these prin- ciples through legislative efforts. The USDA should also carefully review existing efforts that involve inappropriately imposing its preferred agricultural practices onto farmers. Address the Abuse of CCC Discretionary Authority. With the exception of federal crop insurance, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is generally the means by which agricultural-related farm bill programs are funded. The CCC is a funding mechanism, which, in simple terms, has $30 billion a year at its disposal.24 Section 5 of the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act (Charter Act)25 gives the Secretary of Agriculture broad discretionary authority to spend “unused” CCC money. However, in general, past Agriculture Secretaries have not used this power to any meaningful extent. This changed dramatically during the Trump Administration, when this discretionary authority was used to fund $28 billion in “trade aid” to farmers, consisting primarily of the Market Facilitation Program. In 2020, this authority was used for $20.5 billion in food purchases and income subsidies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.26 At the time, critics warned that this use of the CCC, which in effect created a USDA slush fund, would lead future Administrations to abuse the CCC, such as by pushing climate-change policies.27 Predictably, this is precisely what the Biden Administration has done, using the discretionary authority to create programs out of whole cloth, arguably without statutory authority,28 for what it refers to as climate-smart agricultural practices.29 The merits of the various programs funded through the CCC discretionary authority is not the focus of this discussion. The major problem is that the Secre- tary of Agriculture is empowered to use a slush fund. Billions of dollars are being used for programs that Congress never envisioned or intended. Concern about this type of abuse is not new. In fact, from 2012 to 2017, Congress expressly limited the Agriculture Secretary’s discretionary spending authority under the Charter Act.30 And this was before the recent massive discretionary CCC spending occurred. The use of the discretionary power is a separation of powers problem, with Congress abrogating its spending power. This power is ripe for abuse—as could be expected with any slush fund—and it is a possible way to get around the farm bill process to achieve policy goals not secured during the legislative process. The next Administration should: l Refrain from using section 5 discretionary authority. The USDA can address this abuse on its own by following the lead of most Administrations and not using this discretionary authority. — 295 — Department of Agriculture l Promote legislative fixes to address abuse. Ideally, Congress would repeal the Secretary’s discretionary authority under section 5 of the Charter Act. There is no reason to maintain such authority. If Congress needs to spend money to assist farmers, it has legislative tools, including the farm bill and the annual appropriations process, to do so in a timely fashion. While not an ideal solution, Congress could also amend the Charter Act to require prior congressional approval through duly enacted legislation before any money is spent. At a minimum, Congress should amend the Charter Act to: l Limit spending to directly help farmers and ranchers address issues due to unforeseen events not already covered by existing programs and that constitute genuine emergencies that must be addressed immediately. l Prohibit the CCC from being used to assist parties beyond farmers and ranchers. l Clarify that spending is only to address problems that are temporary in nature and ensure that funding is targeted to address such problems. l Tighten the discretion within section 5 and identify ways for improper application of the Charter Act to be challenged in court. Reform Farm Subsidies. Too often, agricultural policy becomes synonymous with farm subsidy policy. This is unfortunate, because making them synony- mous fails to recognize that agricultural policy covers a wide range of issues, including issues that are outside the proper scope of the USDA, such as environ- mental regulation. However, there is no question that farm subsidies are an important issue within agricultural policy that should be addressed by any incoming Adminis- tration. There are several principles that even subsidy supporters would likely agree upon, including the need to reduce market distortions. Subsidies should not influence planting decisions, discourage proper risk management and innovation, incentivize planting on environmentally sensitive land, or create barriers to entry for new farmers. Farm subsidies can lead to these market distortions and there- fore, it would hardly be controversial to ensure that any subsidy scheme should be designed to avoid such problems. The overall goal should be to eliminate subsidy dependence. Despite what might be conventional wisdom, many farmers receive few to no subsidies,31 with most subsidies going to only a handful of commodities. According to the Congres- sional Research Service (CRS), from 2014 to 2016, 94 percent of farm program
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.