USDA, EPA and the Interior Department could all shut down at the end of this week unless lawmakers can reach a deal on President Donald Trump’s funding demands for the border wall.

 

Ahead of the funding deadline looming at the end of the week, USDA is widely expected to release a final rule spelling out requirements for disclosing biotech ingredients in food.

 

Also expected this week from USDA is a proposed rule that would make it more difficult for states and counties to get waivers from the work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents who enroll in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

 

From the Trump administration's perspective, the SNAP waiver is the major piece of unfinished business left over from negotiations over the new farm bill, which Congress is expected to deliver to the White House early this week for Trump to sign. The Senate and House approved the final bill by landslide margins last week.

 

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, were unsuccessful in persuading Senate negotiators to write tougher waiver rules into the farm bill, but Conaway also managed to prevent the Senate from adding restrictions into the farm bill that would have limited Perdue’s ability to tighten the waiver requirements, sources said.

 

The border wall hasn’t been the only issue lawmakers have been wrestling with as they try to pass a spending bill to fund USDA, FDA, EPA, Interior and other departments that do not yet have their fiscal 2019 allocations.

 

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