On Tuesday, December 11, House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) unveiled a compromise budget deal that would eliminate $63 billion in automatic sequestration cuts to discretionary spending programs in fiscal year 2014 and 2015. While a significant political breakthrough, the deal manages to reduce the total […]
Budget and Appropriations
Clock Ticking on Farm Bill and Budget Deals
Next week is the last week the House and Senate will both be in session at the same time for the rest of the year. That means it’s now or never on announcing a farm bill deal and a fiscal year 2014 government budget deal. We currently expect both announcements early next week, assuming the […]
Farm Bill? Budget Deal? Nuclear Fallout?
Thursday was a momentous day in Congress. Senate Democrats went nuclear, voting by a simple majority to change Senate rules and end the minority party’s ability to filibuster presidential nominees other than Supreme Court nominees. Whether this action puts the Senate into a drawn-out series of procedural standstills for the rest of the year remains […]
Budget Conference and What It Means for Food and Agriculture Policy
Late on Wednesday, October 16, Congress passed a bill to fund the government through January 15 and raise the debt limit until February 7. The bill ends a partial government shutdown that lasted 16 days, and averts a default that could have occurred had the U.S. debt limit been reached. However, because the deal is […]
Federal Government Shuts Down Many Services
After the House and Senate failed to agree on a federal funding bill by midnight on September 30, the Federal Government began shutting down non-essential services on Tuesday. In order to avoid a government shutdown, Congress needed to pass and the President needed to sign a fiscal year (FY) 2014 funding bill called a continuing […]
Farm Bill Takes Step Forward while Government Funding Bill Uncertain
FARM BILL COUNTDOWN CLOCK Update: On Saturday, September 28, the House approved the rule to allow for debate over the government funding bill without any delays, a rule which also combined the farm-only and nutrition-only farm bills back into a single comprehensive bill. Four Democrats voted yes and four Republicans voted no in what […]
House Passes Bill to Slash Government Funding and Repeal Affordable Care Act
Update: On Friday, September 20, the House passed its short-term continuing appropriations resolution, 230-189. Two Democrats voted Aye on the bill, while one Republican voted against the bill. Click here for the full roll call vote. On Thursday, September 19, the House of Representatives passed a rule to govern debate on a short-term continuing appropriations […]
House Committee Releases Bill to Fund Government into December
Late on Tuesday, September 10, the House Appropriations Committee released a draft of its continuing appropriations resolution (CR) for the first two and a half months of fiscal year (FY) 2014. With few exceptions, the bill would fund programs until December 15 at the levels provided in the final FY 2013 CR. Despite the House […]
Land Stewardship Project Report Assesses Conservation Stewardship Program in Minnesota
The Land Stewardship Project just released a comprehensive report addressing the Conservation Stewardship Program in Minnesota. The report analyzes participation in the program county-by-county and makes recommendations to improve the program at the state and national level. The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is a comprehensive working-lands program that provides financial and technical assistance to farmers […]
What’s on Deck this Fall for Farm Bill and Appropriations
Congress will be back in Washington next week and first up will be debates in both houses on Syria. The debate and action on Syria will take at least a week, and could spill over into a second week if a Senate filibuster takes place. The time debating foreign war policy will delay action on […]
SARE Celebrates 25 Years!
As NSAC celebrates its 25th anniversary (see here) , so does the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. This is not a coincidence. Authorizing and winning funding for SARE was the first major NSAC campaign. SARE was the first USDA program dedicated to sustainable agriculture and remains the keystone program. Yesterday, SARE issued […]
Moving toward the Brink as They Head out of Town
“This is b___s___” Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) expressing anger over having his transportation and housing appropriations bill pulled from the House floor by the GOP leadership. “With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted three months ago. Thus, I believe that the House has made […]
Farm Bill and Agriculture Appropriations – Clear as Mud
The congressional month-long August recess is just a week away. In more normal times, as those types of deadlines loom, deals get done on Capitol Hill. Not so this year. The path forward on a new five-year farm bill and on the set of appropriations bills to fund the government for the coming fiscal year […]
Farmers Speak Out for Sustainable Agriculture at USDA and on the Hill
Farmers and ranchers take a break after a morning full of meetings with USDA officials Research into sustainably extending the tomato growing season in New Mexico. A feasibility study for a stone-ground grain enterprise. Cover crops to minimize soil erosion and leaching. All of these stories and more came up this week during a series […]
Is There a Path Forward on the Farm Bill?
This week, we are doing a three-part blog series on the House’s failure to pass a farm bill last week. The first post covered the topic of farm program reform, the second post analyzes why the bill failed, and this third discusses options for moving the bill forward. In the week since the U.S. House […]
Senate Appropriations Committee Passes 2014 Agriculture Funding Bill
This week, the Senate Appropriations Committee and Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee marked up their agriculture spending bill for fiscal year 2014. This bill allocates $20.93 billion in funding for agriculture, rural development, nutrition and food safety programs for the next fiscal year, which begins on October 1. This funding allocation is $420 million higher than this […]
House Committee Passes 2014 Agriculture Funding Bill
Today, the House Appropriations Committee approved the fiscal year (FY) 2014 agricultural appropriations bill, which the House Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee passed on June 5. The bill sets discretionary funding at $19.5 billion, which is $1.3 billion below the FY 2013 enacted level, but is roughly equal to the FY2013 level minus the cuts imposed by […]
House Subcommittee Passes 2014 Agriculture Funding Bill
The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee yesterday approved its fiscal year (FY) 2014 agriculture appropriations bill by voice vote. The bill sets discretionary spending at $19.5 billion, which is $1.3 billion below the FY 2013 enacted level but roughly equal to the FY 2013 enacted level minus sequestration (across-the-board budget cuts imposed in FY 2013 following […]
Conservation Organizations Oppose Appropriations Cuts to Conservation
On Tuesday, June 4, more than 25 national conservation organizations delivered a letter to House Appropriators opposing the practice of cutting mandatory conservation program funding in annual appropriations bills. Mandatory conservation spending falls under the jurisdiction of the authorizing committees, in this case, the Agriculture Committees. Yet, year after year, recent annual appropriations bills limit conservation […]
Rural Development Front and Center at Senate Hearing
The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies held a hearing this week amidst the buzz of Farm Bill activities on Capitol Hill. Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Ranking Member Roy Blunt (R-MO) took a break from floor action on the Farm Bill to lead Thursday’s hearing […]
House Subcommittee Debates 2014 Farm and Food Funding
Over the last two weeks, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee held a series of hearings to examine the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s and the Food and Drug Administration’s budget requests for fiscal year (FY) 2014. We previously posted about the first Subcommittee hearing of the year, which featured Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and the second […]
USDA Promises Support for Public Plant Breeding Research at House Hearing
On Wednesday April 17th, the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee questioned the Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics as well as the heads of USDA’s four research agencies, as preparation for developing a federal spending bill for fiscal year 2014. The witnesses as this week’s hearing include: Dr. Catherine Woteki, Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics […]
Senators Question Aspects of Proposed Food Safety Regulations
In a hearing about the agency’s proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget request, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Hamburg fielded questions from Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee members on a wide-ranging set of issues, from sequestration effects to cosmetics and food safety. Throughout the hearing, Senators raised issues and questions about the FDA’s proposed regulations on […]
Secretary Vilsack Promotes Cover Crops, Local Foods, Contract Fairness during House Hearing
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies today to discuss his agency’s FY 2014 budget requests. The Subcommittee will consider USDA’s requests as it writes its funding bill for the year. Conservation, Drought, and Crop Insurance Early in the hearing, Subcommittee […]