WASHINGTON,
Dec. 27, 2013 – President Obama signed into law a two-year budget bill (H.J.
Res. 59) that will avoid another government shutdown next month and ease
sequestration rates for some federal agencies.
Obama
signed the bill Thursday, while on vacation in Hawaii, without comment. The
action came a little more than a week after the Senate approved it on a 64-36
vote. After the Senate vote, Obama said, “All told, it’s a good first step away
from the shortsighted, crisis-driven decision-making that has only served to
act as a drag on our economy.”
The law
will provide about $63 billion in temporary sequester relief divided evenly
between military spending and domestic spending. The law will provide $85
billion in mandatory savings, and reduce the deficit by $23 billion over the
next 10 years.
The law
includes various agriculture sector-related provisions:
- It authorizes $404
million in funding for the National Bio and Agro-Defense facility (NBAF)
in Kansas, which will eventually replace the functions of the aging Plum
Island Animal Disease Center located off Long Island. NBAF will study
dangerous foreign animal diseases as well as emerging and new infectious
diseases that can be transmitted between animals and people.
- It authorizes the
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to collect fees of up to
$150 per conservation plan to cover some of the costs of providing
technical assistance for a producer or landowner. The agriculture
secretary can waive fees for assistance provided to members of
historically underserved groups, such as beginning farmers or ranchers,
limited resource farmers or ranchers, and socially disadvantaged farmers
or ranchers.
- The law ends the
reimbursement USAID and USDA receive for excess costs associated with the
requirement that 50 percent of all food aid be shipped on U.S. flagged
vessels. Oxfam has said that could cost USAID’s food aid program about $56
million annually.
A
section-by-section summary of the law is available here.
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