The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday will consider a fiscal year 2016 Agriculture appropriations bill that the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee approved on Tuesday.

The subcommittee bill provides $143.8 billion for the Agriculture Department and related agencies, including $20.5 billion in the discretionary funding that comes directly under the jurisdiction of appropriators.

The bulk of the bill comprises mandatory funding for farm and nutrition programs that total $123.3 billion.

The full $143.8 billion appropriation is $24 billion below President Barack Obama’s budget request and $3.7 billion below the fiscal year 2015 enacted level.

The $20.5 billion discretionary funding portion of the bill is $65 million below the fiscal year 2015 enacted level.

The subcommittee bill contains provisions that restrict the ways in which the Obama administration can finalize the dietary guidelines and delays implementation of restaurant menu labeling rules, but it does not contain provisions to limit implementation of school meals rules or ban federal inspection of horse slaughter.

“The appropriations bill passed out of subcommittee today balances a commitment to fiscal responsibility and continued investment in rural America,” said Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan.

“The bill prioritizes agriculture research and extension activities, promotes rural development efforts, supports food safety and public health initiatives, and prioritizes the development of new medicines and medical devices,” Moran said.

“It also reins in regulatory overreach by the Obama administration by limiting the scope of the dietary guidelines and delaying the implementation of overly broad menu labeling rules.”

Senate Agriculture Appropriations ranking member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said Moran “has worked hard to protect critical programs funded in this bill as well as to keep policy riders to a minimum.”

“I appreciate the bipartisan manner in which we’ve worked drafting this bill,” Merkley said.

“But more needs to be done. In order to protect rural America, our nation’s food supply, and the most vulnerable citizens among us we must have a bipartisan budget agreement that moves this country forward.”

“The subcommittee’s allocation conforms to the post-sequester caps under the Budget Control Act. Not one Senate Democrat voted for these austere spending levels because they do not provide adequate resources to protect America, build infrastructure, create opportunity, and spur economic growth,” Merkley added.

“We need a new budget deal, in the spirit of Murray-Ryan that stops hollowing out investments in America’s future.”

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.

Moran lists highlights

Moran said the highlights of the bill include:

• $2.7 billion to support research by the Agricultural Research Service and land-grant and non-land-grant universities. This amount includes $325 million for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, $244 million for Hatch Act formula funding for research at state agriculture experiment stations, and $402 million for Smith-Lever programs to support overall extension service activities.
• $876 million for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, $20 million above Obama’s budget request and $5 million above the fiscal year 2015 enacted level. The increase would help address wildlife damage management issues, establish prevention and early animal disease response methods, provide equipment upgrades for forest product import verification, and improve pre-departure inspections of agriculture imports.
• $855 million for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, $8.8 million above the fiscal year 2015 enacted level and $24 million over the budget request. The bill rejects the president’s budget proposal to reduce conservation technical assistance to landowners and producers.
• $1.49 billion for the Farm Service Agency for farm, conservation, and emergency loan programs that are important to the nation’s farmers and ranchers. It prohibits closing FSA county offices, and provides resources to continue implementation of the 2014 farm bill.
• $1 billion for the Food Safety and Inspection Service, approximately the same as the 2015 enacted level, for meat and poultry inspection. The bill would support more than 8,000 frontline inspection personnel for meat, poultry, and egg products at more than 6,400 facilities.
• $682.7 million for salaries and expenses for Rural Development, a $4.5 million increase above the fiscal year 2015 enacted level
• $994 million for USDA rural business and industry grant and loan programs that promote small business growth in rural areas. The bill includes funding for the Healthy Food Financing Initiative to improve access to affordable, healthy foods in underserved areas.
• $1.25 billion for rural water and waste program loans, the same as the fiscal year 2015 enacted level, and $496 million for grants and costs, an increase of $13 million above FY2015 enacted levels. The measure would provide $7.5 billion for rural electric and telephone infrastructure loans.
• $24 billion in loan authority for the single-family housing guaranteed loan program, which is equal to the fiscal year 2015 enacted level and the president’s request. It includes $900 million, the same as the FY2015 enacted level and the president’s request, for the direct loan program that provides low-income rural families with home loan assistance. In addition, $1.2 billion, an increase of $79 million above current levels, is included for the rental assistance program, which helps low-income families and the elderly in rural communities obtain affordable rental housing.
• $2.6 billion in discretionary funding for the Food and Drug Administration, $40 million over the fiscal year 2015 enacted level. Within this total, a $45 million increase is provided for food safety activities. The Senate bill also includes a one-year delay for FDA implementation of the new menu labeling regulation.
• $6.5 billion in discretionary funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which is $110 million below the fiscal year 2015 enacted level and the president’s request. The reduction is based on USDA estimates of declining WIC enrollments and would not prevent eligible participants from receiving benefits, the committee said. The bill includes $55 million for management information systems and the transition from paper vouchers to a more efficient electronic benefit transfer (EBT) system.
• $81.6 billion in required mandatory spending for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Due to declining enrollments, the committee said, this is $175.5 million below last year’s level.
• $21.5 billion in required mandatory funding for child nutrition programs to provide free or reduced-price school lunches and snacks for 30 million children who qualify for the program. This is $224.2 million above the fiscal year 2015 enacted level.
• $1.46 billion for Food for Peace grants which support the delivery of American-grown food, transported by U.S. ships, to foreign countries experiencing chronic hunger crises. The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program is given a $10 million increase for the Local and Regional Food Aid Procurement at the Foreign Agriculture Service.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

Merkley’s points

Merkley noted in a separate release:

• The bill does not include increases for antibiotic resistance, climate change or other research areas within the Agricultural Research Service. The bill also does not include funding for reconstruction and repair of Agricultural Research Service labs.
• For the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the bill maintains the fiscal year 2015 level and does not include a $125 million increase for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.
• The rental assistance provision does not include a proposal to impose a $50 per month minimum rent, but it does fund all expiring rental agreements, assisting over 259,000 very low income rental assistance tenants who are usually elderly, disabled, or have female heads of household.
• Total funding for water and waste disposal is $496 million, an increase of $32 million from last year. With this funding, over 2.2 million rural residents would receive new or improved clean water and sanitary waste disposal service.
• The bill would provide $16 million for Summer EBT, the same as fiscal year 2015, $50.9 million less than the president’s request. “More than 21 million children rely on free and reduced price meals at school, but only a fraction (3 million) receive free meals in the summer,” Merkley said.
• The bill would provide $25 million for school meals equipment grants to replace outdated equipment such as refrigerators and ovens, the same as fiscal year 2015, but $10 million below the request. “These funds are critical to ensure our children eat healthy food, and are used to replace outdated equipment such as refrigerators and ovens,” Merkley said.
• The rider requiring the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans be based solely on nutritional and scientific evidence and not extraneous information would prevent the dietary guidelines from providing common sense recommendations regarding physical activity, and other recommendations important to healthy eating and lifestyles, he said.