Congress faces a Friday deadline to avert a government shutdown, with President Donald Trump backing a House GOP plan to pass a continuing resolution that would keep departments and agencies funded through Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2025.
A 99-page CR released by House Republicans on Saturday includes a provision to extend Medicare reimbursement for telehealth services, a key issue for rural areas. However, the CR lacks a provision to authorize year-around sales for E15, a setback for the ethanol industry.
The measure would largely continue funding departments and programs at fiscal 2024 levels. But the bill would provide a $500 million increase for the Women, Infants and Children nutrition assistance program. According to Democrats the CR would also make a small cut in conservation assistance.
Senate Democrats are the biggest hurdle for the CR. Democrats have been demanding assurances that Trump will honor appropriated funding levels, but they won’t get that in this CR. The legislation would need support from at least seven Democrats to get the 60 necessary to pass the GOP-controlled Senate.
“A Republican Senate and a Republican House is not going to restrict the Republican president,” said House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla. He said Republican appropriators in both chambers have been very clear with Democrats that they aren’t going to limit the president.
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said Democrats want to make sure that appropriated money goes where it’s intended to.
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Trump quickly endorsed the CR in a social media post targeted at congressional Republicans: “Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s ‘financial house’ in order. Democrats will do anything they can to shut down our Government, and we can’t let that happen.”
But Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, hasn’t been on board with the House GOP plan either. She told reporters on Thursday that a short-term extension could give negotiators enough time to finish work on FY25 spending legislation. Fiscal 2025 ends Sept. 30.
“If we could just go to mid-April, we would be finished” with the FY25 bills, she said. As for the House GOP plan, she said, “We've had some input into their language, but not a lot.”
Collins said in a statement Saturday that lawmakers need to avoid an "unnecessary and costly government shutdown. ... Government shutdowns are inherently a failure to govern effectively and have negative consequences all across government."
A fact sheet on the GOP CR released by House Appropriations Republicans said it “does not include any partisan restrictions on President Trump, which are part of the outlandish and unrealistic demands Democrats have been trying to push. Republicans will not allow the minority to restrain presidential authorities and President Trump’s ability to execute the agenda the American people elected him to implement.”
A fact sheet released by House Appropriations Committee Democrats says the bill would leave USDA’s Emergency Food Program (TEFAP) $20 million short of being fully funded. That “would leave 25,000 seniors unable to participate in the Commodity Supplemental Food Program,” the fact sheet says.
The CR also would trim $37 million from the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, which funds research at land grant universities and other institutions, and $30 million from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the fact sheet says.
Senate Appropriations Committee Democrats, meanwhile, say in a fact sheet that the CR would effectively require USDA to absorb a $34 million increase in the cost of rental assistance, hurting other rural development programs. “The bill allows the administration to pick winners and losers across the broad range of Rural Development programs covering housing, utilities, broadband, and small business support,” the fact sheet says.
The CR also would cut Army Corps of Engineers construction funding by 44%, “which will halt progress on some ongoing projects that mitigate the impacts of hurricanes, flooding, and more.”
The CR that has been keeping the government funded since December expires Friday at midnight.
The ethanol industry's hopes for year-around E15 were dashed in December when Trump and Musk came out against a funding bill that included the provision. It was omitted from the bill that ultimately passed, but the industry hadn't given up getting it attached to the next funding bill.
Also this week, the Senate Agriculture Committee will have the third of three hearings on the farm economy, with this one focused on views from the banking and rural business sectors.
Here is a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere (all times EST):
Monday, March 10
National Farmers Union annual meeting, Oklahoma City.
National Grain and Feed Association annual convention, Carlsbad, California.
School Nutrition Association legislative action conference, through Tuesday, J.W. Marriott.
Tuesday, March 11
Noon – USDA releases the monthly Crop Production report and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.
10 a.m. – House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing, “Shifting Gears: Moving from Recovery to Prevention of Improper Payments and Fraud,” 2247 Rayburn.
2:30 p.m. – Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on the farm economy, “Perspectives From the Field: Risk Management, Credit, and Rural Business Views on the Agricultural Economy,” 328A Russell.
Wednesday, March 12
8:30 a.m. – Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the monthly Consumer Price Index.
Thursday, March 13
9:30 a.m. – Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee meeting to consider the nomination of Martin Makary as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, 562 Dirksen.
Friday, March 14
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