Congress periodically establishes agricultural and food policy in a multiyear omnibus farm bill. Provisions in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (2008 farm bill; P.L. 110-246 ) generally expired beginning on September 30, 2012. But the American Taxpayer Relief Act ( P.L. 112-240 ; January 2, 2013) extended all 2008 farm bill provisions that were in effect on September 30, 2012, for one additional year—that is, for FY2013 and the 2013 crop year. Parts of the 2008 farm bill expired again in October 2013 and, technically, implementation of an outdated permanent law would have been imminent for dairy in January 2014, had it not been for the stated resolve to complete the conference negotiations. After the passage of the Agricultural Act of 2014 (2014 farm bill; P.L. 113-79 ) on February 7, 2014, expiration will not be an issue again until 2018. Expiration of the 2008 farm bill was an issue because the 112 th Congress made limited progress on a farm bill in 2012. The Senate passed S. 3240 , but the House committee-reported bill ( H.R. 6083 ) never reached the floor. Concern over budgetary reductions complicated the bills' progress. This impasse led to the one-year extension in P.L. 112-240 . Similar difficulties faced the farm bill in 2013. The Senate passed S. 954 on June 10, 2013. The House rejected a committee-reported bill ( H.R. 1947 ) on June 20, mostly over disagreements about the nutrition title. The House passed a "farm-only" bill ( H.R. 2642 ) on July 11 without the nutrition title, and on September 19 passed a stand-alone nutrition bill ( H.R. 3102 ). The House subsequently adopted a resolution ( H.Res. 361 ) that combined the texts of H.R. 2642 and H.R. 3102 into one bill ( H.R. 2642 ) for purposes of a conference committee with the Senate. The final 2014 farm bill was not conferenced and enacted until February 7, 2014. What happens if Congress does not enact a new farm bill? Does the fiscal year, calendar year, or crop year matter? Will some programs cease to operate? What is "permanent law" and what does it affect? Do the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and crop insurance benefits end? This report answers these and other questions about the expiration of a farm bill. Farm bills include a wide range of authorities, some of which are authorized and funded in the farm bill (mandatory spending), while others are only authorized in the farm bill for their scope but wait for appropriations acts to determine their funding (discretionary spending). These differences affect how the farm bill is constructed and funded under normal circumstances. They also affect what happens when the farm bill expires or when annual appropriations are delayed. Without a new farm bill or extension, it may appear that many programs would not have statutory authority to receive appropriations (an "authorization of appropriations"), but appropriations law allows the continued operation of a program where only appropriations action has occurred. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says there is no constitutional or statutory requirement for an appropriation to have a prior authorization. Congress distinguishes between authorizations and appropriations, but this is a congressional construct. GAO says that "the existence of a statute imposing substantive functions upon an agency that require funding for their performance is itself sufficient legal authorization for the necessary appropriations." For expired authorizations, GAO says that "appropriation of funds for a program whose funding authorization has expired ... provides sufficient legal basis to continue the program." Discretionary spending is authorized throughout the farm bill. Discretionary programs include most rural development, credit, research, and education programs, and some conservation and nutrition programs. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—a mandatory program—also requires an appropriation. Some smaller research, bioenergy, and rural development programs receive both mandatory and discretionary funding, but most is usually discretionary. Most agency operations are financed with discretionary funds. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) compiles a list of programs with expired authorizations of appropriations. Eighteen agricultural programs received more than $37 million in FY2012 under expired authorizations of appropriations. More than 100 farm bill programs briefly lost their authorization for appropriations at the end of FY2012 and until the one-year extension was passed on January 1, 2013; they received $2.3 billion in FY2012. Farm bill discretionary programs generally were continued under the FY2013 appropriation ( P.L. 113-6 ), the continuing resolution for FY2014 ( P.L. 113-46 ), and the full-year FY2014 appropriation ( P.L. 113-76 ). Most farm bill programs with mandatory funding have an expiration date either on their program authority or their funding authority. These include SNAP, farm commodity programs, some conservation programs, agricultural trade programs, and foreign food aid programs. For the most part, without reauthorization or extension, these programs would cease to operate or undertake new activities. Some exceptions to that rule are: SNAP, which can be continued via appropriations action even if its authorization for appropriations is expired. Crop insurance, which is permanently authorized, and Some conservation programs, which were extended separately through FY2014. Mandatory spending is used primarily for the farm commodity programs, crop insurance, nutrition assistance programs, and some conservation and trade programs. Some smaller research, bioenergy, and rural development programs sometimes receive mandatory funding, but their combined share—however important to their own operations—is less than 1% of the total. Nutrition assistance was the largest category in 2013, with 79% of mandatory funding available to write the 2014 farm bill ($764 billion in the 10-year CBO May 2013 baseline for FY2014-FY2023). Other primary programs with mandatory funding were crop insurance (9%, or $84 billion), conservation (6%, or $62 billion), and farm commodity programs (6%, or $59 billion). Programs relying on mandatory funding—provided by the farm bill—are perhaps the most at risk for interruption, since their authorization and funding both require farm bill action. Yet, unlike discretionary programs, many farm bill programs with mandatory funding have their own source of funding via the CBO baseline. The enacted extension in January 2013 continued these programs for one additional year until September 30, 2013, or in the case of the farm commodity programs through crop year 2013. The baseline required no cost to extend the farm commodity, conservation, trade, and nutrition programs. However, another subset of mandatory programs did not have baseline beyond FY2012. Because these programs lacked built-in budgetary resources, offsets were needed to provide future funding. This group included certain agricultural disaster assistance programs, certain conservation programs, specialty crop research and grants, organic research and certification, beginning and socially disadvantaged farmer programs, rural development, bioenergy, and farmers market promotion programs. The extension did not provide these programs any mandatory funding, although many would have been funded in the new farm bill. The extension added an "authorization of appropriation" for discretionary funding in FY2013. But neither the full-year appropriation for FY2013 ( P.L. 113-6 ) nor the continuing resolution for FY2014 ( P.L. 113-46 ) provided any discretionary funding for these programs. Therefore, these programs remained in an expired state throughout 2013 due to a lack of funding. Farm bills, like other legislation, have become more complicated and politically sensitive. They are taking longer to enact than in previous decades. For example, the 1973 farm bill was enacted less than two months after being introduced. In contrast, the 2008 farm bill took more than a year from when it was introduced. It was complicated by revenue provisions from other committees of jurisdiction, temporary extensions, and presidential vetoes. The 2014 farm bill took more than 18 months from its introduction. It spanned the 112 th and 113 th Congresses; the House rejected a bill, then passed two separate components before procedurally combining them for conference. Both the 2008 farm bill and the 2002 farm bill had expired for about three months (from October through December in 2012 and 2007, respectively) before extensions were enacted. In each case, the fiscal year began under a continuing resolution before the farm bill extended occurred. The extensions of the 2002 farm bill were for relatively short periods totaling about five months while final negotiations continued. However, the extension of the 2008 farm bill was for a full year since the 112 th Congress ended and the legislative process needed to restart in the 113 th Congress. Appendix A contains a history of major legislative action on farm bills since 1965. Enacting farm bills after the end of the fiscal year (in which a farm bill expired) is commonplace. In the past 48 years, only the 1973 and 1977 farm bills were enacted before September 30. Farm bills in 1965, 1970, 1981, 1985, and 1990 were enacted by December 31, a few months after the end of the fiscal year but still before spring-planted crops covered by the new law were planted. The most recent four farm bills have been enacted later, in April (1996), May (2002), June (2008), and February (2014), prior to the first crop harvested and covered by the farm bill. The House and Senate have taken turns as the first chamber to take action on a farm bill. Since 1965, the Senate was first to mark up a farm bill in 1973, 1977, 1981, 2012, and 2013. The House was first to mark up farm bills in 1965, 1970, 1985, 1990, 1995 (and 1996), 2001, and 2007. Since 1965, 8 out of 12 farm bills were introduced in the first session of a two-year Congress (the odd-numbered year); the exceptions are the 1970, 1990, and 2014 farm bills.