The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday advanced a fiscal 2024 spending bill for USDA and FDA that’s funded in line with caps in the recently enacted debt ceiling agreement and without the $8 billion in funding rescissions that House Republicans are using to fund their version of the legislation.
The Senate’s FY24 Agriculture appropriations bill would provide $26 billion in new budget authority for USDA and FDA. While that is less than President Joe Biden proposed, it’s far more new funding than the House version would authorize, creating an enormous gap that will have to be bridged in negotiations between the two chambers.
The House Appropriations Committee’s Agriculture bill would provide for about $25 billion in total spending for USDA and FDA in FY24, but the bill relies on the $8 billion in funding rescissions that have virtually no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Without those rescissions, which include cuts to clean energy funding and distressed-borrower assistance provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, there is a $9 billion difference between the two bills.
The $9 billion gap “makes it very challenging” to negotiate the final bill, Sen. John Hoeven, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, told reporters. “We realize there are going to have to be some compromises.”
One of the biggest differences between the House and Senate bills is in funding for the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. The Senate bill fully funds the program at $6.3 billion, while the House would freeze spending at the FY23 level of $6 billion and eliminate an increase in benefits for fruits and vegetables that started during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similarly, the Senate bill would fund USDA’s Agricultural Research Service at $1.79 billion, well below the White House request of $1.94 billion. The House bill would keep ARS funding at the FY23 level of $1.74 billion.
The House bill, however, would provide more money than the Senate version for the ReConnect program, USDA’s chief funding program for rural broadband. The House bill provides $260 million in new funding compared to $98 million in the Senate version.
ReConnect was funded at $348 million for fiscal 2023, which ends Sept. 30. The White House proposed to increase that to $374 million for FY24.
Conservation technical assistance for farmers is partly funded out of annual appropriations bills, with other funding coming from farm bill conservation programs and the Inflation Reduction Act. The Natural Resources Conservation Service would get $800.9 million for conservation technical assistance in the Senate’s FY24 bill versus $776.9 million in the House version.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the bill unanimously. It could be debated on the Senate floor as soon as July.
The House bill also includes $364 million in funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Senate funds CFTC through its Financial Services appropriations bill.
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
