{"bill":{"id":"119-hr-1629","congress":119,"type":"HR","number":1629,"title":"Farmland Security Act of 2025","originChamber":"House","introducedDate":"2025-02-26","sponsors":[{"bioguideId":"G000600","fullName":"Rep. Perez, Marie Gluesenkamp [D-WA-3]","party":"D","state":"WA","district":3}],"cosponsorsCount":2,"latestAction":{"actionDate":"2025-02-26","text":"Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture."},"policyArea":"Agriculture and Food","subjects":[],"actions":[{"date":"2025-02-26","text":"Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.","type":"IntroReferral","chamber":"House floor actions","hasVote":false},{"date":"2025-02-26","text":"Introduced in House","type":"IntroReferral","chamber":"Library of Congress","hasVote":false},{"date":"2025-02-26","text":"Introduced in House","type":"IntroReferral","chamber":"Library of Congress","hasVote":false}],"summary":"<p><strong>Farmland Security Act of 2025</strong></p><p>This bill&nbsp;authorizes increased civil penalties for violations of the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA)&nbsp;and increases Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversight of and research into foreign investment in agricultural land.&nbsp;As background, AFIDA and the regulations that implemented the act require foreign investors who acquire, transfer, or hold an interest in U.S. agricultural land to report such holdings and transactions to USDA.</p><p>In general, the bill allows USDA to determine an appropriate civil penalty amount for an&nbsp;AFIDA violation by removing the cap that currently&nbsp;prohibits the civil penalty from exceeding 25% of the fair market value of the interest in the agricultural land&nbsp;associated with the violation.</p><p>Under an exception in the bill, the civil penalty for a foreign-owned shell corporation is 100% of the fair market value of the interest in the agricultural land. The bill defines&nbsp;a shell corporation to include a company, association, firm, partnership, society, joint stock company, trust, or estate that has no or nominal operations.  The penalty does not apply if the shell corporation remedies a defective filing or failure to file within 60 days of USDA providing notice.</p><p>USDA must conduct annual compliance audits of at least 10% of the reports. Further, USDA must provide&nbsp;state and county-level personnel certain annual training.</p><p>USDA must also annually conduct research and submit a report to Congress on foreign investment in agricultural land, including trends in the purchase of U.S. agricultural land by foreign-owned shell corporations.</p>","updateDate":"2025-12-05T22:01:02Z"},"markets":[],"stateBills":[],"meta":{"sources":["congress.gov"],"latencyMs":257,"ts":"2026-04-15T20:38:14.031Z"},"nextActions":{"inspect":[],"related":[{"description":"Search related legislation","method":"GET","url":"/api/public/query-gov?q=Farmland%20Security%20Act%20of%202025"}]}}