WASHINGTON, April 13, 2016 - The fiscal 2017 appropriations process
takes a few steps further today as House subcommittees mark up the agriculture
and energy and water spending bills and a Senate subcommittee considers its
energy and water bill.
The House agriculture
bill contains $21.3 billion in discretionary funding, a $451-million
reduction from this year and $281 million less than what The Obama
administration requested, but the House is proposing spending increases for energy
and water.
Despite the overall cut for agriculture spending in the House bill, it would
actually boost spending in select areas, including for FDA’s implementation of
the Food Safety Modernization Act and for rural development programs at USDA.
A key provision in the House proposal for energy and water spending brings back
a rider to block the WOTUS rule and also includes controversial provisions to
help drought-stricken California farmers.
Meanwhile, on the Senate side of Capitol Hill, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
said the energy-water spending bill will be on the Senate floor next week. Sen.
Jerry Moran, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture said
the farm spending bill will be marked up by the end of the month. For
more details, please see Agri-Pulse’s weekly e-newsletter, out later today.
Roberts pessimistic on CFTC reauthorization. The Senate Agriculture
Committee convenes Thursday to take up the long-delayed reauthorization of the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but the Republican Chairman Pat Roberts
is already pessimistic, reports Agri-Pulse’s Phil Brasher.
Roberts said that he and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the ranking Democrat on the
committee, are “paddling in different directions” right now. Stabenow said
Monday the reauthorization bill would not be able to pass the Senate and
Roberts responded: "It may not. We’re going to have a markup and we may
get a couple of votes on the other side of the aisle, and we’ll see if the
Senate in its infinite wisdom will continue the march, just as they have done
with the GMO thing, or pardon me, agricultural biotechnology.”
Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Timothy Massad toldAgri-Pulse Tuesday
that he isn’t prepared to take sides and is just hopeful progress can be made.
“Let me just say on reauthorization, I’m pleased that the process is moving
forward. I think it’s good. I’ll just have to wait and see where the committee
lands and then we’ll go from there,” he said.
TPP battle heats up. The war of words over the Trans-Pacific Partnership –
the centerpiece of trade policy in Barack Obama’s presidency - continues today
with a teleconference hosted by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. NCBA
Vice President Kevin Kester is expected to cover the bases on why the 12-nation
trade pact represents such a boon for exports of U.S. beef and other farm
commodities and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman will join him for the
“Pass TPP Conference Call.”
It’s just another round in a battle that began this week with a letter sent to
Congress on Monday from more than 200 farm groups and food companies that urged
lawmakers to disregard the anti-trade pact rhetoric on the presidential
campaign trail and ratify the deal that the American Farm Bureau Federation
says will increase net farm income by $4.4 billion annually by reducing tariffs
on U.S. agricultural exports.
On the other side of the battle are groups like Oxfam America and Public
Citizen who, along with 48 others, signed on to a letter to Congress Tuesday to
beseech lawmakers not to approve TPP. The pact, they said, provides far too
much protection for large pharmaceutical companies, allowing them to keep
prices high for medical drugs.
Moran and Ernst pen bill to cut taxes on ag students. Senators Jerry
Moran, R-Kan., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, want to take some of the tax burden off
of young agriculture students. Together they introduced this week the
Agriculture Students Earn Act (S. 2774) that would exclude the first $5,000 of
gross agricultural income from being taxed by the IRS.
“For agriculture and our rural way of life to thrive, it is essential for a new
generation of young people to return to rural America to live, work and raise
their families,” Moran said. “Our policies, including the tax code, should
encourage this goal by fostering student interest in pursuing a career in
agriculture, and I’m proud to have Senator Ernst join me in introducing the
Agriculture Students Earn Act.”
Conaway demands answers on EPA funds for advocacy campaign. House
Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway is demanding answers from the EPA
on its involvement in a campaign against water pollution that the Texas
lawmaker says attacked farmers. The EPA, he said, entered into a $3 million
cooperative agreement with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, which ran
a campaign against farmers and ranchers in Washington State with billboards and
a website. “While this advocacy campaign is troubling, we are even more
concerned that it appears to be part of a broader pattern of mismanagement of
federal funds at EPA,” Conaway said.
He said it: "Have her campaign on that: I’m for more user fees for
end users out there in farm country.” That was Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat
Roberts, expressing frustration with ranking member Debbie Stabenow over her
insistence on imposing new user fees to increase funding for the CFTC.
For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com