A package of fiscal 2024 spending bills released by congressional leaders Sunday includes new provisions to address concerns about foreign acquisition of U.S. farmland and agribusiness interests and also provides full funding for the Women, Infants and Children nutrition assistance program.
The Agriculture portion of the FY24 minibus would add USDA to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for issues involving "agricultural land, biotechnology and industry," according to the report that accompanies the Ag section.
USDA would be required to notify CFIUS of any agricultural land transactions reported under AFIDA that “may pose a risk to national security,” according to the report.
The minibus also provides $1 million to USDA to design a new data system for reporting foreign farmland purchases under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act. USDA officials have told the Government Accountability Office that $25 million will be needed if they are to include all historical disclosures, due to the need to scan and digitize records dating back to 1978.
In a victory for the produce industry and nutrition advocates, the bill would fund WIC at $7 billion for FY24, which started Oct. 1, and reject an attempt by the House GOP to reverse an increase in benefits for purchasing fruits and vegetables.
GOP negotiators tried to trade the WIC funding for a pilot program to test restrictions on foods that can be purchased with SNAP benefits. The supermarket industry joined nutrition advocates in fighting the provision and it was ultimately left out of the spending package.
“The reality is – the question of whether to fully fund fruits and vegetables should have never been on the table. We urge Congress to pass the appropriations bill in a timely and bipartisan fashion and ensure that nutrition in WIC is never compromised again,” said Cathy Burns, CEO of the International Fresh Produce Association.
Luis Guardia, president of the Food Research and Action Center, said the minibus “includes critical resources to address WIC’s budget shortfall, helping to avert a potential disruption of services and prevent long waiting lists that would have left more women, infants, and young children hungry and unable to access the essential WIC services they rely on.”
The minibus comprises half of the annual spending bills for FY24: Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Military Construction, and Transportation-HUD. The remaining six bills, including Defense and Labor-HHS, will be released in coming days, according to a press release from the minority staff of the House Appropriations Committee.
Under a stopgap spending bill that Congress passed on Thursday, lawmakers have until Friday to pass the minibus released Sunday and until March 22 to get the second package enacted.
“It’s good news that Congress has finally reached a bipartisan agreement on the first six government funding bills that will keep the government open. We are proud to be keeping the government open without cuts or poison pill riders,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said, “Even with divided government and a historically small House majority, House Republicans have worked hard to successfully move the policy and spending priorities of the federal government away from the previous Pelosi-Schumer FY23 appropriations, and American taxpayers will benefit from it.”
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Republicans were able to trim funding from FY23 levels for some agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA is funded at $9.2 billion for FY24, a reduction of $232 million when the Superfund program is not included. However, the bill would maintain funding at $681.7 million for geographic restoration programs, including those for the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes.
The Interior Department’s budget would be cut $398 million to $14.7 billion for FY24. The Fish and Wildlife Service is reduced in the bill by $51 million to $1.7 billion. The Bureau of Land Management would be cut $81 million to $1.4 billion.
At USDA, the ReConnect grant and loan program for rural broadband would be sharply reduced under the minibus to $90 million, down from the $348 million the program got in fiscal 2023. ReConnect now has a separate stream of funding through the bipartisan infrastructure law passed in 2021.
The Agricultural Research Service would get a slight increase for FY24 from $1.82 billion to $1.85 billion. But funding for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which funds research at colleges and universities would be trimmed from $1.7 billion to $1.68 billion.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service would be funded at $1.16 billion, down from $1.17 billion in FY23.
The Food for Peace program is funded at $1.62 billion under the bill, down from $1.75 billion in FY23. The McGovern-Dole international school feeding program would be trimmed by $3.3 million to $240 million.
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