This Week in DC
House Democratic leaders are aiming to push through a stopgap spending bill this week after threatening a fight with the White House, and potentially with some of their own rural members, over a plan that could jeopardize farmers’ trade aid payments.
A continuing resolution needs to pass by Oct. 1 to keep the government funded into the new fiscal year. House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., has been considering leaving out an administration request to replenish the $30 billion Commodity Credit Corp. account that USDA uses to make the Market Facilitation Program payments.
“We cannot cut a lifeline to struggling farmers. I will not support a CR that doesn’t include tariff aid,” first-term Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, tweeted on Friday after word spread of the plan that could at least slow delivery of the latest round of MFP payments.
A spokesman for Lowey said that discussions over the draft CR were continuing.
A key Senate appropriator, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, vowed to ensure that the payments would continue flowing. Hoeven chairs the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, which controls USDA’s budget.
The CR must be passed because lawmakers are nowhere close to finishing work on the 12 spending bills needed to fund the government in fiscal 2020.
The House has passed 10 of its 12 bills, but on the Senate side, the Appropriations Committee is just getting started. The committee last week approved its spending limits for each of the bills and began moving the first of the 12 measures. Subcommittees will start on several more on Tuesday, including the Agriculture bill, which funds the Food and Drug Administration as well as USDA.
Spending for discretionary programs under the Agriculture bill, those programs that are subject to annual appropriations, unlike farm bill programs and many nutrition programs, would be funded at $23.1 billion, just above the fiscal 2019 level.
The House-passed version of the bill is funded at just under $24 billion, not including money for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (The House includes the CFTC in its version of the Agriculture bill, but the Senate funds the CFTC through its Financial Services bill.)
Hoeven said his subcommittee is hoping to put together “the best package they can” to fund the agencies
The Senate limit for the Interior-Environment bill, which funds EPA, the Interior Department, and the Forest Service, was set at $35.8 billion, well below the $37.3 billion in the House-passed bill and slightly above the FY19 level for those agencies of $35.6 billion.
The Senate and House will have to negotiate the final spending levels later, but senators first have to resolve internal disputes that forced Republican leaders to postpone action on two bills last week. Democrats angered Republicans by seeking to include an abortion-related measure in the bill that funds the Department of Health and Human Services. Democrats, in turn, complained that Republicans were seeking to divert funds from HHS and other agencies to fund the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Despite the partisan struggle, the top Democrat on Senate Appropriations, Pat Leahy of Vermont, said the committee would continue trying to move bills. “There was a time if you had any disagreements, you wouldn’t even have a markup, we’re going to have markups on everything,” he told reporters last week.
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A continuing resolution needs to pass by Oct. 1 to keep the government funded into the new fiscal year. House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., has been considering leaving out an administration request to replenish the $30 billion Commodity Credit Corp. account that USDA uses to make the Market Facilitation Program payments.
“We cannot cut a lifeline to struggling farmers. I will not support a CR that doesn’t include tariff aid,” first-term Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, tweeted on Friday after word spread of the plan that could at least slow delivery of the latest round of MFP payments.
A spokesman for Lowey said that discussions over the draft CR were continuing.
A key Senate appropriator, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, vowed to ensure that the payments would continue flowing. Hoeven chairs the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, which controls USDA’s budget.
The CR must be passed because lawmakers are nowhere close to finishing work on the 12 spending bills needed to fund the government in fiscal 2020.
The House has passed 10 of its 12 bills, but on the Senate side, the Appropriations Committee is just getting started. The committee last week approved its spending limits for each of the bills and began moving the first of the 12 measures. Subcommittees will start on several more on Tuesday, including the Agriculture bill, which funds the Food and Drug Administration as well as USDA.
Spending for discretionary programs under the Agriculture bill, those programs that are subject to annual appropriations, unlike farm bill programs and many nutrition programs, would be funded at $23.1 billion, just above the fiscal 2019 level.
The House-passed version of the bill is funded at just under $24 billion, not including money for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (The House includes the CFTC in its version of the Agriculture bill, but the Senate funds the CFTC through its Financial Services bill.)
Hoeven said his subcommittee is hoping to put together “the best package they can” to fund the agencies
The Senate limit for the Interior-Environment bill, which funds EPA, the Interior Department, and the Forest Service, was set at $35.8 billion, well below the $37.3 billion in the House-passed bill and slightly above the FY19 level for those agencies of $35.6 billion.
The Senate and House will have to negotiate the final spending levels later, but senators first have to resolve internal disputes that forced Republican leaders to postpone action on two bills last week. Democrats angered Republicans by seeking to include an abortion-related measure in the bill that funds the Department of Health and Human Services. Democrats, in turn, complained that Republicans were seeking to divert funds from HHS and other agencies to fund the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Despite the partisan struggle, the top Democrat on Senate Appropriations, Pat Leahy of Vermont, said the committee would continue trying to move bills. “There was a time if you had any disagreements, you wouldn’t even have a markup, we’re going to have markups on everything,” he told reporters last week.
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