Congressional leaders released bill text Sunday afternoon of half a dozen spending measures, a critical step toward funding the government five months after the start of the fiscal year.
Lawmakers hope to pass the six-bill package this week, which includes spending for the U S Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.
House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger released the following statement after the package was released:
“In recent years, spending on domestic priorities has skyrocketed, adding trillions to our national debt. The House Republican Conference made a commitment to change the trajectory of federal funding and put an end to wasteful spending, especially on initiatives that received billions of dollars outside of the normal appropriations process.”
According to the House Republicans’ summary of the package- the highlights of the USDA/FDA portion of the deal include:
Rejects President Biden’s proposal for 4,700 new full-time equivalents (FTE) at the USDA
headquarters in Washington, D.C., and instead encourages the hiring of staff in the county
offices that work directly with producers and rural communities.
• Addresses foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land.
• Continues critical investments in agriculture research, rural broadband, rural water
infrastructure, and animal and plant health programs.
• Provides sufficient resources to ensure the safety of food, drugs, and medical devices.
• Maintains a funding restriction on the FDA from conducting research on a human embryo
that is intentionally created or modified to include a heritable genetic modification.
Beyond USDA/FDA, the House GOP leadership point to a 9.4% cut in spending for EPA.
The FY2024 bill includes language that prohibits USDA from closing county FSA offices- “That none of the funds available to the Farm Service Agency shall be used to close Farm Service Agency county offices.”
Within the directives document for USDA/FDA- available here– one thing that jumped out in our first reading of some of the details of policy found in this measure include language that Congressman Frank Lucas and others have been demanding regarding the need for the US Secretary of Ag having a seat at the table at CIFUS:
“The agreement makes the Secretary of Agriculture a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) with respect to covered transactions involving agricultural land, biotechnology, and industry. The agreement requires the Secretary to notify CFIUS of agricultural land transactions reported under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) that may pose a risk to national security. For these purposes, the agreement provides a $2,500,000 increase in the Office of Homeland Security for CFIUS reviews and a $1,000,000 increase in the Farm Production and Conservation Business Center to improve AFIDA reporting.”
There’s also language that includes funding for animal ID- and use of Electronic ID tags: “
The agreement directs the Department to continue to provide the tags and related infrastructure needed to comply with the Federal Animal Disease Traceability rule (9 CFR 86), including no less than $15,000,000 for electronic identification (EID) tags and related infrastructure needed for stakeholders to comply with the proposed rule, “Use of Electronic Identification Eartags as Official Identification in Cattle and Bison” (88 FR 3320), should that rule be finalized.”
