Lawmakers return to Washington to try to focus on spending bills in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s stunning announcement Sunday that he was dropping his re-election bid and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidential nomination.
The House is due this week to debate a pair of fiscal 2025 spending bills, including the measure that funds the Interior Department and EPA, as lawmakers return from their break for the Republican National Convention. The House was originally scheduled this week to debate the FY25 Agriculture appropriations measure, which includes funding for USDA and FDA, but that measure was removed from the schedule on Monday.
The House Agriculture Committee this week will hold a hearing on farmers’ current financial situation.
Biden had been under unrelenting pressure from a mounting number of Democratic lawmakers to step aside. Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia added his voice to the chorus on Sunday.
In a letter announcing Sunday afternoon he would leave the race, Biden said it was "in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term."
The full House was originally scheduled this week to debate four fiscal 2025 spending bills this week, but the schedule was reduced to the Interior-Environment and Energy-Water measures. The Energy-Water bill includes funding for the Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation.
House Republicans are using the FY25 Interior-Environment bill to put a focus on a variety of regulatory moves by the Biden administration. Among other things, the bill would block the EPA from implementing regulations on light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles.
Other policy riders in the bill would block rules issued under the National Environmental Policy Act to factor climate change considerations in permitting decisions. The bill also would prohibit EPA from enforcing its Clean Power Plan 2.0, new climate-related regulations on power plants. The Bureau of Land Management would be blocked from carrying out new regulations that put conservation on a par with grazing and other uses of BLM land.
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The bill also slashes funding for both Interior and EPA. EPA’s science and environmental programs would be cut by $1.2 billion to $2.8 billion in FY25. Funding for BLM would be reduced $116 million to $1.3 billion. The Fish and Wildlife Service would be cut $144 million to $1.6 billion.
It's not clear when. the House will take up the Agriculture funding bill.
Last year’s Agriculture measure failed on the floor when a significant contingent of rural Republicans abandoned the measure because of its deep cuts in spending. This year's FY25 bill still includes a number of policy riders aimed at blocking or slowing regulations implemented by the Biden administration. Those include regulations intended to curb the contracting power of meat processors and a new food safety traceability rule issued by FDA.
The Senate version of the Agriculture spending bill, which lacks the cut to Food for Peace and partisan policy provisions, would increase funding by 3% over FY24 to $27.05 billion. The Senate bill doesn’t include funding for CFTC, which would get $345 million in FY25 under the House bill.
The stark differences in spending levels between the House and Senate version will have to be negotiated later, likely after the November elections.
The House Agriculture Committee will have a hearing Tuesday on the farm economy and then a subcommittee hearing Thursday on reauthorization of the CFTC.
Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa, said his panel is seeking to put a focus Tuesday on the financial situation faced by farmers amid the slump in prices for many major commodities.
“We'll hear firsthand what farm families are dealing with to help guide us to make sure that the policies we're putting forward makes farming profitable again. That's the goal,” Thompson told Agri-Pulse.
The witnesses will include the president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, Dana Allen-Tully, as well as a farmer from North Carolina and representatives from the American Bankers Association and the Agricultural Retailers Association.
Here is a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere (all times EDT):
Monday, July 22
4 p.m. – House Rules Committee meeting to consider the fiscal 2025 Agriculture, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment and Financial Services appropriations bills, H-313 Capitol.
4 p.m. – USDA releases weekly Crop Progress report.
Tuesday, July 23
8:15 a.m. – National Academies of Sciences’ Committee on Heritable Genetic Modification in Food Animals workshop, “Oversight and Food Safety Concerns Posed by Heritable Genetic Modification in Food Animals.”
10 a.m. – House Agriculture Committee hearing on farm financial conditions, 1300 Longworth.
Wednesday, July 24
Thursday, July 25
8:30 a.m. – House Agriculture subcommittee hearing on reauthorization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, 1300 Longworth.
8:30 a.m. – USDA releases Weekly Export Sales report.
9:30 a.m. – Senate Appropriations Committee meeting to consider its fiscal 2025 Commerce-Justice-Science, State-Foreign Operations, and Transportation-HUD appropriations bills, 106 Dirksen.
Friday, June 26
This report was updated on Monday with the Agriculture funding bill dropped from this week's schedule.
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