HR 4121 Introduced – FY 2026 ARD Spending
Earlier this week Rep Harris (R,MD) introduced HR 4121, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies (ARD) Appropriations Act, 2026. The House Appropriations Committee also published their Report on the bill. There is one cybersecurity spending mention in the bill and three minor cybersecurity discussions in the Report. There are two industrial chemical safety discussions in the Report.
Cybersecurity Spending
On page 5 in the bill the spending for the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Chief Information Officer is set at $85-million with $60-million that provided for cybersecurity requirements of the department.
Cybersecurity Discussion in Report
On page 7 the Committee looks at the co-Sector Risk Management Agency (SMRA) responsibilities of the USDA Office of Homeland Security. The note that as “demonstrated by ransomware attacks, cybersecurity threats to the food and agriculture sector have far-reaching and highly disruptive effects. SRMA is responsible for coordinating efforts across the food and agriculture sector to address and mitigate these threats.”
On page 9, the Report looks at the Service Delivery Modernization effort of the USDA’s Office of the CIO, noting that the Committee supports the effort that is “being carried out pursuant to the CIO’s strategic plan, consistent with the National Cybersecurity Strategy, Executive Order 14058, Executive Order 14028, the Federal Information Security Management Act, and the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act.”
On page 252 in Dissenting Views section of the report looks at the funding of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, noting that their “ability to operate and to protect itself and its data from international predatory cyber criminals is severely hampered by being funded at eight percent below fiscal year 2025.”
Industrial chemicals in Report
On page 14 the Report discusses the ongoing Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the domestic tire additives industry on efforts to identify and develop chemical compounds as potential 6p-phenylene-diamine (6PPD) replacements. The Committee increased the funding by $500,000.
On page 47 the Report discusses some dairy farms that are unable to sell their milk because of contamination from a family of synthetic chemicals, collectively known as ‘‘PFAS’’ chemicals. The Committee notes that USDA updated the Dairy Indemnity Payment Program (DIPP) to provide additional options to dairy producers impacted by PFAS contamination.
Moving Forward
With the House out this coming week for their 4th of July holiday, there will be no action taken on this bill until sometime in July (or maybe September, August is still scheduled to be a congressional holiday). It remains to be seen which spending bills will make it to the floor and which will be passed. The Congress will receive some pressure from the Administration to move spending bills under regular order, but the myth of control of the House and Senate remains to be proven. It still looks like significant amounts (if not all) of the government will be funded by end-of-year omnibus spending bills.
This bill passed in the House Appropriations Committee by a party-line vote of 35 to 27 (pg 9). This may not be enough to ensure that the bill passes in the House (may depend on attendance on the day of the vote), but it certainly indicates that the bill as crafted would not pass in the Senate, because at least 7 Democrats will have to vote for the bill for it to pass. The Senate will not take up this version of the bill in any case, but that body will have an even harder time this year crafting a spending bill that will pass given the intra-party divisions in that body. Any bill there that is designed to get enough Democrats to reach 60-votes will lose Republican votes.