House leaders delay final consideration of Ag approps bill due to Cantor loss
June 12, 2014 | 01:17 AM
After voting on a series of amendments to the fiscal 2015 Agriculture appropriations bill but avoiding action on school meal requirements, the House Republican leadership late Wednesday delayed further action on the bill until next week.
A House GOP aide said that further action was delayed because Republican House members are trying to come to terms with the primary defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and his decision to resign his leadership position effective July 31.
On Tuesday, Cantor’s office said that votes on the Agriculture appropriations bill would be held until late Wednesday, but that changed after Cantor announced he would resign as majority leader.
The House will go into session at 9 a.m. Thursday for legislative business to consider bills on the “Permanent S Corporation Built-in Gains Recognition Period Act” and “America’s Small Business Tax Relief Act.”
Votes are expected no later than 3 p.m., and no votes are expected on Friday.
The House did not deal Wednesday evening with the controversial issue of whether to strike a provision calling on the Agriculture Department to grant waivers from healthy school meals rules to schools that say they have lost money on their meals program for six months.
Of the eight Agriculture appropriations amendments that the House considered late Wednesday, only one was passed: an amendment offered by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., to change a key U.S. Agency for International Development food aid and agricultural development program.
The Royce amendment shifts $10 million from the Agricultural Marketing Service to food aid local purchases, which would reduce AMS’s appropriated budget for services such as setting standards for international trade, publishing price and volume sales data about agricultural commodities, and other activities that facilitate the marketing of U.S. agricultural products.
The amendment would not affect commodity research and promotion programs, whose costs (including oversight) are covered by the assessment fees that producers agree to pay.
“In a time of shrinking budgets we are forced to do more with less,” Royce said.
“It is crucial that the United States has the tools to respond to humanitarian crises while stretching our food aid dollars further,” he said.
“From the ongoing crisis in Syria to the devastating typhoon in the Philippines, starving people do not have months to wait for emergency food to arrive. The LRP program is a bipartisan tool that been proven to reduce delivery time and costs. This proposal is common sense — it allows us to save the lives of more people facing starvation, more quickly, at a lower cost.”
The amendment passed by a vote of 223 to 198 even though a coalition of farm groups — American Sugar Alliance, Minnesota Corn Growers Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Cotton Council, National Crop Insurance Services, Southwest Council of Agribusiness, and USA Rice Federation — opposed it.
Those groups said the amendment “would shift funding from the Agricultural Marketing Service to a newly authorized and controversial foreign food assistance program — the Local and Regional Purchase program — used to purchase foreign produced commodities for food aid rather than homegrown, American food.”
The House rejected an amendment by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., that would have allowed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to spend more money on regulatory efforts and less on information technology. The vote was 194-277.
The House adopted an amendment from Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., to allow veterans to apply for food stamps while their disability claims are pending with Veterans Affairs Department, The Hill reported. The amendment would increase the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, by $1 million to handle claims from veterans.
The lack of House action leaves the debate over school meals rules Thursday to a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on the issue and to First Lady Michelle Obama’s harvest of her kitchen garden in the company of several school food service nutrition directors.
A House GOP aide said that further action was delayed because Republican House members are trying to come to terms with the primary defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and his decision to resign his leadership position effective July 31.
On Tuesday, Cantor’s office said that votes on the Agriculture appropriations bill would be held until late Wednesday, but that changed after Cantor announced he would resign as majority leader.
The House will go into session at 9 a.m. Thursday for legislative business to consider bills on the “Permanent S Corporation Built-in Gains Recognition Period Act” and “America’s Small Business Tax Relief Act.”
Votes are expected no later than 3 p.m., and no votes are expected on Friday.
The House did not deal Wednesday evening with the controversial issue of whether to strike a provision calling on the Agriculture Department to grant waivers from healthy school meals rules to schools that say they have lost money on their meals program for six months.
Of the eight Agriculture appropriations amendments that the House considered late Wednesday, only one was passed: an amendment offered by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., to change a key U.S. Agency for International Development food aid and agricultural development program.
The Royce amendment shifts $10 million from the Agricultural Marketing Service to food aid local purchases, which would reduce AMS’s appropriated budget for services such as setting standards for international trade, publishing price and volume sales data about agricultural commodities, and other activities that facilitate the marketing of U.S. agricultural products.
The amendment would not affect commodity research and promotion programs, whose costs (including oversight) are covered by the assessment fees that producers agree to pay.
“In a time of shrinking budgets we are forced to do more with less,” Royce said.
“It is crucial that the United States has the tools to respond to humanitarian crises while stretching our food aid dollars further,” he said.
“From the ongoing crisis in Syria to the devastating typhoon in the Philippines, starving people do not have months to wait for emergency food to arrive. The LRP program is a bipartisan tool that been proven to reduce delivery time and costs. This proposal is common sense — it allows us to save the lives of more people facing starvation, more quickly, at a lower cost.”
The amendment passed by a vote of 223 to 198 even though a coalition of farm groups — American Sugar Alliance, Minnesota Corn Growers Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Cotton Council, National Crop Insurance Services, Southwest Council of Agribusiness, and USA Rice Federation — opposed it.
Those groups said the amendment “would shift funding from the Agricultural Marketing Service to a newly authorized and controversial foreign food assistance program — the Local and Regional Purchase program — used to purchase foreign produced commodities for food aid rather than homegrown, American food.”
The House rejected an amendment by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., that would have allowed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to spend more money on regulatory efforts and less on information technology. The vote was 194-277.
The House adopted an amendment from Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., to allow veterans to apply for food stamps while their disability claims are pending with Veterans Affairs Department, The Hill reported. The amendment would increase the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, by $1 million to handle claims from veterans.
The lack of House action leaves the debate over school meals rules Thursday to a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on the issue and to First Lady Michelle Obama’s harvest of her kitchen garden in the company of several school food service nutrition directors.
