The Senate Appropriations Committee looks to advance the rest of its fiscal 2025 spending bills, including measures that fund federal water resource agencies and the Labor Department, ahead of the long August recess.
The House, by contrast, is not in session this week after GOP leaders were unable to push through several FY25 spending bills and decided to start the recess early.
After this week, the House and Senate are only scheduled to be in session three more weeks, all in September, until after the November election.
The new fiscal year starts Oct. 1, but lawmakers are nowhere near being able to finalize any of the 12 FY25 spending measures. Final legislation will have to wait until after the election to be done and could well get kicked into the next Congress, as happened this year.
The House and Senate have yet to even agree on top-line funding levels for FY25 spending. The House approved an Interior-Environment bill last week that was trimmed by 0.2% from FY24 to $38.5 billion; the Senate version by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week is funded at $44.6 billion.
The House bill would slash EPA’s budget by 20%, while the Senate would give the agency a small increase.
The House GOP has taken a much more partisan approach to its FY25 funding bills and while all 12 made it out of the appropriations committee only five have been approved on the House floor. The Legislative Branch bill was defeated on the floor and several other bills were pulled before final votes, including the Energy-Water, or never debated on the House floor.
The House Appropriations Committee’s Agriculture funding bill was not put on the floor as originally scheduled last week. The bill includes funding for USDA and FDA as well as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has moved seven bills through committee, all of them on either unanimous or heavily bipartisan votes. None of the bills has been considered on the Senate floor yet.
Appropriations Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., said at the outset of last week’s meeting on the Interior-Environment bill and three other measures that the committee is “moving ahead with strong bipartisan bills that can actually be passed and signed into law, and which actually address the issues we all hear about back home, and the many challenges we are seeing abroad.”
This Thursday, the committee will consider its final five FY25 bills, including the Energy-Water bill, which funds the Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation, and the Labor-HHS bill, which funds the Labor Department and Department of Health and Human Services.
The National Council of Farmer Cooperatives holds its annual Washington conference this week and will hear from the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Mike Crapo of Idaho. If Republicans win control of the Senate next year, Crapo will take over as chairman of the committee, which handles tax and trade policy.
In that case, Crapo will lead the Republican effort to extend expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including a key deduction for farm income from cooperatives.
Here is a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere (all times EDT):
Monday, July 29
4 p.m. – USDA releases weekly Crop Progress report.
Tuesday, July 30
10 a.m. – Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee hearing, “Enabling Rural Businesses to Grow at Home While Competing Abroad,” 253 Russell.
10 a.m. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, “Strategic Competition with the PRC: Assessing U.S. Competitiveness Beyond the Indo-Pacific,” 419 Dirksen.
Wednesday, July 31
National Council of Farmer Cooperatives annual Washington conference, through Friday, Hyatt Regency.
10 a.m. – Senate Budget Committee hearing, “Charging Ahead: The Future of Electric Vehicles,” 608 Dirksen.
Thursday, Aug. 1
8:30 a.m. – USDA releases Weekly Export Sales report.
9:30 a.m. – Senate Appropriations Committee meeting to consider its fiscal 2025 Energy-Water, Defense, Labor-HHS, Homeland Security and Financial Services appropriations bills, 106 Dirksen.
Friday, Aug. 2
UN Food and Agriculture Organization releases monthly Food Price Index.
For more news, go to Agri-Pulse.com.
