While the US Senate was able to finish the National Defense Appropriations Bill before leaving for the August Congressional recess- the House was unable to get the Appropriations for agriculture complete before they left town at the end of this past week for six weeks for their version of an August recess.
House Conservatives wanted more cuts in HR 4368- the Fiscal Year 2024 Ag Appropriations Bill- titled the Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration Related Agencies Appropriation Act of 2024- and that along with 189 amendments that were filed by lawmakers and being considered by the House Rules Committee that is chaired by Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole prevented the Appropriations Committee from finishing their work before leaving town. Here’s the link from the Rules Committee that offers a quick review of all 189 amendments.
Among the 189 amendments was one spotlighted by multiple ag groups as being concerning- amendment 113 offered by Victoria Spartz of Indiana. We reported on it in our conversation from San Diego with NCBA’s Ethan Lane.
“At the beginning of this Congress, we watched the speaker fight where they were negotiating the rules, and some of the rules they negotiated were around how the amendment processes would work,” Lane said. “Open amendment process leads to the kind of appropriations process we are seeing now. They have got to pass an appropriations bill to find the government every year, but if you have that in a really open format, sometimes it draws some pretty wild stuff out of the woodwork in the form of last-minute, half-baked amendments, and certainly, we have seen a few of those this week, including this amendment from Victoria Spartz, this congresswoman from Indiana.”
Lane said Spartz is seeking to stop the use of federal funding in Beef Checkoff programs, and any checkoff programs in general.
“We don’t use any federal funds to implement the Checkoff programs, so it is sort of an odd amendment, but unfortunately not necessarily out of character for what we see during these kind of wild open amendment processes,” Lane said.
Other Ag groups agree with NCBA when it comes to having concerns- click here for our earlier story on comments from several ag trade groups on the Spartz Amendment.
The explanation of the amendment proved to be odd as well- you can listen to the long rambling monologue from Congresswoman Spartz that admitted that no taxpayer funds are used in the administration of checkoff program oversight- click on the audio listen bar below to hear her testimony before Tom Cole’s Committee on Wednesday.
The Rules Committee reviewed the lengthy list of amendments but did not rule on what amendments would be allowed to be considered in the Appropriations Committee consideration of the bill.
According to Politico- the debate over the Ag Appropriations measure is happening at the highest levels- “The Freedom Caucus’ proposals for additional agriculture cuts have particularly infuriated a swath of rank-and-file Republicans, especially those in rural districts who have strong ties to GOP leadership. McCarthy himself represents an agriculture-heavy district in California. “(McCarthy is House Speaker Kevin McCarthy)
Politico goes on to report “Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) said he was “mortified” about some of the cuts to key agriculture programs that Freedom Caucus members were working to secure on Thursday. He added that further cuts to USDA would impact food safety and U.S. agriculture exports that farmers in his state rely on.”
The failure of the Appropriations Committee to move the Ag Appropriations measure before the August recess underscores the problems faced by the House Ag Committee’s leadership knowing how many dollars they will have available to them as they work to mark up a 2023 Farm Bill, which will not happen now until mid September at the earliest as Chairman GT Thompson stares at the September 30th deadline when the current farm law expires.
That makes the prospect of an extension of the 2018 Farm Law more and more likely once Congress returns after Labor Day. Congressman Frank Lucas told Ron Hays and the Oklahoma Farm Report earlier in July that the question is “how much money will we have when push comes to shove to write policy.” Lucas adds “If we were to see the budget bean counters demand real cuts- then you absolutely will have an extension Ron because the safety net can’t become weaker- it has to become stronger. But- I’m an eternal optimist- I’m the guy who took two and half years to do a farm bill and we got her done. We’ll get her done this time but just not sure what day yet.”
