House appropriators approve Ag bill with GRAS, catfish amendments, not GIPSA
July 08, 2015 |09:10 PM
The House Appropriations Committee today approved a fiscal year 2016 Agriculture appropriations bill to fund the Agriculture Department, the Food and Drug Administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Farm Credit Administration.
The overall total of the bill is $143.9 billion including mandatory nutrition and farm program spending, while the total in discretionary spending is $20.65 billion, which is $175 million lower (1 percent) than the fiscal year 2015 enacted level and $1.1 billion below the president’s budget request.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said the Agriculture bill is “a strong appropriations bill that accomplishes what it seeks to do,” while House Appropriations ranking member Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said the funding levels in the Ag bill and others are so low and unacceptable to the Senate and to President Barack Obama that “the bills we are considering in committee are a bridge to nowhere.”
There were conflicting reports on how the bill would affect the fight against highly pathogenic avian influenza.
House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., said the bill provides USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) $871 million, $15 million more than Obama requested.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, noted that APHIS’s veterinary division has lost 225 employees in recent years and said that she hopes funding to return APHIS to its pre-sequestration level can be achieved before the bill reaches the House floor.
During the three-hour markup session, the committee adopted only three amendments including the manager’s amendment, which contained a number of notable provisions.
One would stop importation of beef from certain areas of Argentina and Brazil even though APHIS announced last week during the visit of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff that it considers importation of beef from those areas to be safe.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said the provision had been inserted at the request of Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., and thanked the majority for including it.
The committee also directed USDA to evaluate its policies on urban agriculture and report to the House and Senate Appropriations committees on how to “further advance urban agriculture.”
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., said the provision is important, noting that a fish farm has recently opened in Minneapolis.
The committee also adopted an amendment offered by Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., to require the Food and Drug Administration to make partially hydrogenated oils “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) during the three-year period in which companies are supposed to phase them out.
Harris said FDA gave the companies three years to comply with the phase-out, but then said they were not generally recognized as safe. This has made food companies that continue to use the oils fear lawsuits over the issue. The amendment was adopted by voice vote.
DeLauro also offered an amendment that she said would make sure the trade promotion authority bill that recently passed Congress would not affect catfish regulation. Aderholt said he would accept DeLauro’s amendment, and it passed by voice vote.
The amendment does not use the word “catfish,” but refers to certain sections of laws and regulations.
The only other Republican besides Harris to offer an amendment was Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb. Fortenberry proposed that a provision in the bill that re-establishes commodity certificates adhere to existing law on payment limitations, which are set at $125,000 for a farmer or $250,000 for a married couple.
Aderholt opposed the amendment, saying the provision’s purpose was to provide for flexibility and orderly marketing. Fortenberry gained substantial Democratic support for the amendment, but it failed on a voice vote.
Unlike past years, the bill does not contain a rider prohibiting USDA’s Grain inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration (GIPSA) from issuing certain regulations to ensure fairness in the marketing of livestock and poultry.
“It’s wonderful that after all of these years, key regulations overseen by the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration will finally be funded,” National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson said in a news release.
“Funding these protections will ensure adequate notice of termination of contract and recourse from retaliation and is essential to ensuring farmers and growers have fair and equitable conditions in a marketplace characterized by increased concentration,” said Johnson.
The ban became a public controversy after TV comedian John Oliver took up the cause. Kaptur, a vigorous advocate for small poultry farmers, and singer Willie Nelson wrote in The Washington Post Tuesday that “The powerful meat lobby has pressured Congress year after year to block funding to enforce these rules.”
National Chicken Council President Mike Brown said in a statement today that “The 2008 farm bill instructed GIPSA to provide guidance in five limited areas.”
“GIPSA, under the direction of a trial lawyer with a history of suing poultry companies [a reference to former GIPSA Administrator J. Dudley Butler], responded by proposing wide-ranging and stifling rules that would have strayed so far afield from Congress’s intent that they exceeded GIPSA’s statutory authority and threatened to upend the entire family-farming structure of the broiler chicken industry and that of livestock marketing practices,” Brown said.
Brown noted that after Congress ordered USDA not to implement the regulations in the fiscal year 2015 omnibus appropriations bill, USDA rescinded the regulations.
“We all want our farmers to strive and to prosper,” Brown concluded. “The ultimate success of the chicken company, and the entire industry, depends on it. No matter what musicians, comedians, and representatives with no chicken farmers in their districts are saying.”
The overall total of the bill is $143.9 billion including mandatory nutrition and farm program spending, while the total in discretionary spending is $20.65 billion, which is $175 million lower (1 percent) than the fiscal year 2015 enacted level and $1.1 billion below the president’s budget request.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said the Agriculture bill is “a strong appropriations bill that accomplishes what it seeks to do,” while House Appropriations ranking member Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said the funding levels in the Ag bill and others are so low and unacceptable to the Senate and to President Barack Obama that “the bills we are considering in committee are a bridge to nowhere.”
There were conflicting reports on how the bill would affect the fight against highly pathogenic avian influenza.
House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., said the bill provides USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) $871 million, $15 million more than Obama requested.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, noted that APHIS’s veterinary division has lost 225 employees in recent years and said that she hopes funding to return APHIS to its pre-sequestration level can be achieved before the bill reaches the House floor.
During the three-hour markup session, the committee adopted only three amendments including the manager’s amendment, which contained a number of notable provisions.
One would stop importation of beef from certain areas of Argentina and Brazil even though APHIS announced last week during the visit of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff that it considers importation of beef from those areas to be safe.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said the provision had been inserted at the request of Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., and thanked the majority for including it.
The committee also directed USDA to evaluate its policies on urban agriculture and report to the House and Senate Appropriations committees on how to “further advance urban agriculture.”
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., said the provision is important, noting that a fish farm has recently opened in Minneapolis.
The committee also adopted an amendment offered by Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., to require the Food and Drug Administration to make partially hydrogenated oils “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) during the three-year period in which companies are supposed to phase them out.
Harris said FDA gave the companies three years to comply with the phase-out, but then said they were not generally recognized as safe. This has made food companies that continue to use the oils fear lawsuits over the issue. The amendment was adopted by voice vote.
DeLauro also offered an amendment that she said would make sure the trade promotion authority bill that recently passed Congress would not affect catfish regulation. Aderholt said he would accept DeLauro’s amendment, and it passed by voice vote.
The amendment does not use the word “catfish,” but refers to certain sections of laws and regulations.
The only other Republican besides Harris to offer an amendment was Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb. Fortenberry proposed that a provision in the bill that re-establishes commodity certificates adhere to existing law on payment limitations, which are set at $125,000 for a farmer or $250,000 for a married couple.
Aderholt opposed the amendment, saying the provision’s purpose was to provide for flexibility and orderly marketing. Fortenberry gained substantial Democratic support for the amendment, but it failed on a voice vote.
Unlike past years, the bill does not contain a rider prohibiting USDA’s Grain inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration (GIPSA) from issuing certain regulations to ensure fairness in the marketing of livestock and poultry.
“It’s wonderful that after all of these years, key regulations overseen by the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration will finally be funded,” National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson said in a news release.
“Funding these protections will ensure adequate notice of termination of contract and recourse from retaliation and is essential to ensuring farmers and growers have fair and equitable conditions in a marketplace characterized by increased concentration,” said Johnson.
The ban became a public controversy after TV comedian John Oliver took up the cause. Kaptur, a vigorous advocate for small poultry farmers, and singer Willie Nelson wrote in The Washington Post Tuesday that “The powerful meat lobby has pressured Congress year after year to block funding to enforce these rules.”
National Chicken Council President Mike Brown said in a statement today that “The 2008 farm bill instructed GIPSA to provide guidance in five limited areas.”
“GIPSA, under the direction of a trial lawyer with a history of suing poultry companies [a reference to former GIPSA Administrator J. Dudley Butler], responded by proposing wide-ranging and stifling rules that would have strayed so far afield from Congress’s intent that they exceeded GIPSA’s statutory authority and threatened to upend the entire family-farming structure of the broiler chicken industry and that of livestock marketing practices,” Brown said.
Brown noted that after Congress ordered USDA not to implement the regulations in the fiscal year 2015 omnibus appropriations bill, USDA rescinded the regulations.
“We all want our farmers to strive and to prosper,” Brown concluded. “The ultimate success of the chicken company, and the entire industry, depends on it. No matter what musicians, comedians, and representatives with no chicken farmers in their districts are saying.”
