Archives for the 'Agriculture Appropriations' Category
Legislative Roundup: Farm Credit Funding Passes, Other Food and Farm Legislation Could Move
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
[Friday July 30 update to story below -- A measure to fund the Pigford II class action settlement between USDA and black farmers is now expected to come to the Senate floor early next week as a stand alone measure. The Food Safety Modernization Act (S 510) is now not expected to be taken up before the Senate leaves for summer recess at the end of next week, though it may come to the floor in September. Whether the Senate takes up the child nutrition reauthorization bill next week is still an open question.]
As is often the case as the summer congressional recess approaches, there is lots of activity on Capitol Hill. With so many moving pieces of interest to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and NSAC member organizations, we are issuing this brief update.
Supplemental Appropriation – Farm Credit Funding, BCAP Cut
On Tuesday, July 27, the House approved a $59 billion war supplemental spending bill by a vote of 308-114 and sent it to the President for his signature. The bill includes $950 million in Farm Service Agency (FSA) farm loan program funding to help meet emergency farm lending needs. The loan funding and several other USDA-related provisions are offset by a $50 million funding cut to the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). NSAC was a strong proponent of the farm loan funding and the offset.
The war supplemental has been pending for months. The bill has bounced back and forth between the House and the Senate, with major disputes centering around how many emergency domestic spending initiatives to tie to the war and foreign aid spending, the centerpiece of the bill. In the end, the Senate’s smaller domestic package prevailed.
The bill includes $33 billion for war operations, $6 billion in foreign aid, $5 billion for domestic disaster relief, and $13 billion in mandatory funding to help Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
The NSAC-supported credit package includes $350 million for direct farm operating loans, $300 million for guaranteed farm ownership loans, $250 million for guaranteed farm operating loans, and $50 million for subsidized guaranteed farm operating loans.
The limitation placed on BCAP, an important farm bill renewable energy program, is warranted in our view based on runaway spending and misplaced priorities, as this program was being implemented by the FSA. With a cap on program spending, the agency will need to continue to give thought to focusing the program to support the most important biomass crop projects possible.
Pigford Settlement Funding
Included in the most recent House-passed version of the supplemental appropriations bill, but deleted from the final product, was $1.15 billion for the Pigford II settlement between USDA and black farmers. That measure was originally attached to a tax extender bill that has not made it through the legislative gauntlet yet, and then it was stuck onto the supplemental in the House.
Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) says he will try to add the Pigford settlement funding, and another class action settlement between American Indians and the Department of the Interior over the government’s mishandling of trust accounts, onto a small business bill the Senate is considering on the floor this week. It is not yet clear whether this third attempt to find a vehicle for the two settlement accounts will be successful. NSAC supports the funding and the quickest possible resolution of the matter.
Ag Disaster Aid
Speaking of the small business bill, Senate Agriculture Chair, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), has secured the agreement of the Majority Leader to attach her emergency agricultural disaster funding measure to the small business legislation. That measure was also attached to the tax extender bill earlier in the year, but now is seeking a potentially faster moving vehicle. A vote is expected later this week.
The measure includes $1 billion for bonus direct commodity payments for farmers who suffered a greater than 5 percent loss in production, a provision that has proved controversial, yet remains in play. The measure also includes specific disaster funding for cottonseed, aquaculture, Hawaiian sugar, livestock, and specialty crop producers.
Food Safety and Child Nutrition Bills
As regular readers will know, food safety and child nutrition reauthorization legislation has been chugging along slowly for the past two years. With time running out on this session of Congress, it is not yet clear if a way will be found to pass these bills and get them signed into law this year. The measures are both among the most bipartisan bills pending in Congress, which, all other things being equal, should improve their chances of passage. Nonetheless, netiher has proceeded smoothly, and both are looking for Senate floor time before the August recess begins.
The Senate food safety bill (S. 510) was voted out of Committee late last year, but has been stalled since then due to behind the scenes negotiations over amendments ranging from family farms and local food systems, to banning the use of the chemical additive BPA in food containers, to the re-importation of drugs from Canada.
The House passed it’s companion bill a year ago and has been waiting for final Senate action before they can proceed to a conference committee to settle on the final form of the legislation. Even if the Senate passes a bill soon, it is unclear whether enough time remains in this session for what could be a long conference negotiation.
The pending Managers Amendment to the Senate bill contains a number of provisions strongly supported by NSAC. NSAC also supports two amendments still being negotiated by Senator Brown (D-OH) and Senator Tester (D-MT), though we will withhold final judgment until negotiated text is closer to being agreed upon.
A child nutrition bill was approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee in March and a companion bill by the House Education and Labor Committee in July. Both bills include mandatory funding for the Farm to School program. The Senate bill costs $4.5 billion over 10 years and is paid for through offsets, including the controversial proposed cut to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The House bill costs $8 billion over 10 years, but House Democratic leadership is still in the process of looking for funding offsets and have thankfully indicated to us they will not scale back farm bill conservation programs to pay for the child nutrition increase.
While further House action on the bill is not likely until September, Senate Majority Reid said this week that he would explore whether floor time might be made available for the Senate nutrition bill. Senator Lincoln intends to take to the floor each day to explain to her colleagues the importance of taking up the bill. Her floor statement from Tuesday, July 27 is posted here.
We will continue to provide readers with new information on the food safety and child nutrition bills as it becomes available.
Revised Chart on FY 2011 Ag Appropriations
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
With both the House Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee and the full Senate Appropriations Committee now having taken action on their Fiscal Year 2011 agricultural spending bills, NSAC is posting a revised version of its annual agriculture appropriations chart to our website. The chart provides detailed funding level decisions on a program-by-program basis for about 40 USDA programs that we follow closely each year.
Appropriations bills generally only become public once the full appropriations committees have voted on them. Since that has not yet happened for the House bill yet, the numbers represented in our chart for the House bill are based on the best available information we have been able to obtain. In a few instances there are blanks where information has either been lacking or inconsistent and therefore possibly unreliable. The Senate numbers are all confirmed. The Senate bill and committee report can be found here.
Looking ahead to later this year when a final bill is put together, we will be emphasizing:
- attaining the historic House Subcommittee-approved $30 million funding level for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program;
- removing the cuts to mandatory farm bill conservation funding contained in the Senate bill for the Wetlands Reserve, Grasslands Reserve, Farm and Ranch Land Protection, and Agricultural Management Assistance program;
- achieving the higher Senate total funding level ($8.35 million) for the Rural Micro-entrepreneurship Assistance Program and farm operating and ownership loans;
- obtaining the higher House funding level ($7 million) for the USDA Office of Advocacy and Outreach that coordinates policy and programs for beginning and minority farmers and farmworkers; and
- inserting into the final bill funding for the groundbreaking Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Account program.
As the process continues, we will update our appropriations chart as information changes.
Senate Committee Adopts Ag Spending Bill
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
On Thursday, July 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the Fiscal Year 2011 Agricultural Appropriations bill by voice vote. The action on the agriculture bill came after a lengthy partisan debate over the overall discretionary spending levels for the entire government for FY 2011, which concluded with the adoption of Chairman Inouye’s proposed spending allocations.
The agriculture bill proposes to spend $22.838 billion for all discretionary spending (net of a variety of cuts to mandatory programs) for the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and several smaller government agencies. This is nearly $300 million less than the FY 2010 level and $27 million less than what President Obama requested.
After winning support from USDA, the White House and then the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee asked for a $30 million funding level for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. We regret to say that today the Senate Committee adopted a far lower,, $23 million, SARE funding level. Both bills include $15 million for research and education grants and $5 million for extension and outreach grants, but they differ on funding for the SARE state matching grant program, with the House at $10 million and the Senate at only $3 million. NSAC strongly supports the $30 million funding level and will continue to urge the Senate to come up to that level before finishing work on its bill this year.
As with the House Subcommittee-passed bill, the Senate bill moves forward on two Administration initiatives. The USDA portion of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative would receive $30 million under the Senate bill compared to $40 million in the House bill and $50 million requested by USDA. The Senate bill, like the House bill, also approves a somewhat scaled-back version of the new Regional Rural Innovation Initiative, which includes funding for local and regional food system projects. Both bills also provide $2 million for USDA’s Farm to School “tactical teams” to help school districts source more local food.
Whereas the House Subcommittee-passed bill refrains from cutting any farm bill mandatory conservation programs other than the traditional $270 million cut from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and $165 million cut from the Small Watersheds program, the Senate bill includes some but not all of the additional conservation cuts proposed by President Obama. The Senate Committee-passed bill adopts a $75 million cut to the Wetlands Reserve Program, a $14 million cut to the Grasslands Reserve Program, a $15 million cut to the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program, and a $5 million cut to the conservation portion of the Agricultural Management Assistance Program. The Administration had also requested cuts to the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, but those cuts were rejected by the Senate Committee. NSAC appreciates the sparing of those two programs, but continues to oppose the additional raids on farm bill conservation spending, and will continue to urge the Senate to find alternative offsets before bringing their bill to conclusion later this year.
A few other bill highlights follow:
Research — In addition to the SARE news above, the Senate Committee bill includes $5 million for Organic Transitions research, the same level as the House bill and $5 million more than the zero budget requested by the President. For the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), the Senate bill provides $310 million, compared to $312 million in the House bill, $262 million in the current year, and the $429 million Obama requested level.
Rural Development — Like the House bill, the Senate bill would level funding for the Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG) program at $20.4 million. The total Senate funding level for Rural Business and Industry Guaranteed Loans would provide $49.7 million in loan guarantees for local and regional food enterprises versus $47.1 million in the House bill (the same as the FY 2010 level). The Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP) fares much better in the Senate bill than the House bill. The House bill would allow the $4 million in mandatory farm bill money to move forward, but provides no additional discretionary funds above that level, whereas the Senate bill provides an additional $4.35 million, for a total of $8.35 million. The President had requested an additional $7.7 million. Rural Coop Development Grants would get a modest increase to $12.4 million in the Senate bill. The ATTRA National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service program would receive $2.8 million in both bills, same as the current funding level.
Credit — With additional emergency funding for farm loans still pending in the supplemental appropriations bill slowly making its way through Congress, the Senate regular appropriations bill passed out of Committee today includes higher farm loan amounts than the House bill. Whereas the House bill provides $475 million for Direct Farm Ownership Loans, the Senate bill provides $650 million. For Direct Farm Operating loans, the Senate provides $1.1 billion versus $900 million in the House bill. The Senate bill also includes more for guaranteed operating loans.
Beginning and Minority Farmers — The majority of direct farm ownership and farm operating loans go to beginning and to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, so the credit numbers above are relevant here as well. Sadly, neither bill has provided funding for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Individual Development Account (IDA) program. NSAC will continue to push both houses of Congress to find a way to provide $5 million for this important farm bill program. The two bills have a big difference of opinion over the new Office of Advocacy and Outreach, the central USDA coordinating and policy arm for minority farmer, beginning farmer, and small farm issues. The House bill would match the President’s request for $7 million, but the Senate proposes only level funding at $1.7 million. NSAC will continue to press for the full requested amount.
Organic – Both the House and Senate bills adopt the requested level of $10.1 million for the National Organic Program, and as noted above, both adopt $5 million for the Organic Transitions integrated research program. It also appears that the Senate bill has included $1 million for the Organic Data Initiative, though we are still waiting on confirmation.
NSAC will be posting a chart on its website with more complete details on sustainable food and farming programs in the two pending bills in the near future.