S 2131 Introduced
FY 2024 ARD Spending
This week Sen Heinrich (D,NM) introduced S 2131, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies [ARD] Appropriations Act, 2024. The Senate Appropriations Committee also published their Report to accompany the bill. As expected, the only mention of cybersecurity in the bill deals with the cybersecurity spending by the USDA Chief Information Officer on pages 5 and 6 of the legislation. There are no chemical safety mentions in the bill. There are minor mentions of both in the Committee Report. On Thursday, the Committee ordered the bill to be reported favorably by a unanimous vote (pg 140 of the Report).
Cybersecurity in Report
On page 18 in discussing the critical need for agricultural data security advancements alongside increased use of autonomous systems and new technologies, the report notes:
“To prepare for these needs, the Committee provides $2,000,000 for ARS to collaborate with a land-grand university to research these data security needs and solutions. The partnership should involve a university with expertise in both agricultural technology cybersecurity.”
On page 147 in the list of Senate earmarks in the bill, there is a $137,000 earmark under “Distance Learning and Telemedicine Program” for the expansion of the Grant County, OR, CyberMill.
Chemicals in Report
The only mention of chemicals in the Report that is of specific interest here is in the discussion on page 8 about the East Palestine, OH train derailment. In that discussion the Report looks at the concerns of farmers in Ohio and Pennsylvania about “long-term impacts the derailment and its chemical release will have on the safety and value of farm products”. The Committee “Committee directs the Secretary, in consultation with the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to support farmers through targeted outreach with information about the derailment, assistance with soil testing, mitigation for impacts to agricultural products, and resources to support farmers who can demonstrate they were affected by the derailment.”
There are two additional mentions about chemicals in the report. On page 16, the Committee supports continuing the National Agricultural Statistics Service Information (NASS) collection of Fruit Chemical Use and Vegetable Chemical Use information. On page 25, in discussing the impact of harmful algal blooms on aquaculture, the Committee directs the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to “coordinate with academic partners to understand the effects of chemical mixtures of algal blooms on aquaculture and to develop application control strategies to sustain growth in aquaculture production systems that are able to be extended to industry.”
Moving Forward
Since the Constitution mandates that spending bills originate in the House, the Senate does not usually take action on spending bills until the House version is passed. Typically, once the House passes their bill, the Senate will take up that bill and Heinrich will offer this Senate version as alternate language for the bill. The Senate will make their amendments to this language and then pass the bill (well they have not actually passed individual spending bills in quite some time). A conference committee will be appointed to negotiate a version of the bill that (hopefully) could be passed in both chambers.
The House Appropriations Committee marked-up their version of the bill on June 14th, 2023, and voted to report the resulting bill favorably in a party-line vote. That bill has not yet been published. This, in light of recent leadership disputes in the Republican majority, would seem to indicate that there are still problems that have to be worked out, probably dealing with spending levels. The Republican 11 almost certainly want to see even lower spending levels than were adopted in Committee.
While there is technically still time for the House and Senate to pass an ARD spending bill (and the other eleven spending bills as well), it is unlikely that a conference bill that could be passed in both the House and Senate could be developed by September 30th. The differences in spending levels will be the major sticking point, but issues with the Republican priorities (look at the votes on many of the amendments passed in the final markup) will be an additional impediment to a negotiated reconciliation of the two versions of the bill. The Republican 11 made clear after the debt limit compromise was passed that they see a proper negotiation being that the Democrats agree with their demands.
This has become an increasing problem over the last ten years or so and the reason that we have seen omnibus spending bills passed at the last minute (December 31st) and even after the last minute. That has come to mean that by September 30th, the Congress passes a continuing resolution. And the name of the legislation points to the problem that will cause this year. The legislation allows the current funding levels to continue until some later date. Continuing the current spending levels is an anathema to the Republican 11 (and more than a few additional Republicans), they want to see solid reductions in that spending. This is going to make it extremely difficult (perhaps impossible) to pass a continuing resolution without forcing the Republican extremists to exercise their nuclear option, vacating the Speakership.
While Speaker McCarthy could almost certainly negotiate a power sharing deal with moderate Democrats to get the spending problem solved, it would destroy the Republican Party in the House, and make McCarty a one-term Speaker.