WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2016 - Congressional leaders gave a
frigid reception to President Obama’s budget proposal
for USDA, which includes a recycled plan to save more than $1 billion on
crop insurance in fiscal 2017.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan.,
called the budget proposal “dead on arrival.”
“As farmers and ranchers are faced with the daily
uncertainties of weather and volatile market conditions, the Obama
administration has once again chosen to attack America’s agriculture producers
and their ability to manage risk,” he said in a statement. “The president is
hitting rural America where it hurts most, and all of this is occurring at a
time” when farm
income for this year, according to USDA, will have plunged 56 percent since
2013.
House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, also
slammed the proposal. He said the administration should find savings instead
“by taking long-overdue action to stop high and rising foreign subsidies,
tariffs, and non-tariff trade barriers that unfairly depress the prices
American farmers and ranchers receive in the market and to stop layering new and
costly regulations, like EPA’s Waters of the U.S. regulation, on our nation’s
farm and ranch families.”
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said USDA is proposing the
cuts because of Inspector General and Government Accountability Office reports
criticizing management of the crop insurance program. He said USDA should be
able to pay a smaller portion of crop insurance premiums. The department is
currently subsidizing about 62 percent of the value of crop insurance premiums,
but Vilsack said, “We think... it should be closer to 50 percent.”
The proposed
cuts would reduce premium subsidies for revenue policies that have a harvest
price option (HPO) and eliminate buy-up coverage for prevented planting
insurance. The cuts would save an estimated $18 billion over 10 years and $1.26
billion in fiscal 2017.
Tom Zacharias, president of National Crop Insurance
Services, said he thinks Congress will reject the proposal. “I don’t think this
goes very far, quite frankly,” he said.
“It’s unfortunate that the crop insurance safety net
remains a focus of administration proposals for spending reductions in
agriculture,” Zacharias said. “This is a time when farmers would rely on crop
insurance as much now as any other time. It’s important to keep this safety net
in effect and viable.” The proposal “raises the cost of farmers to do business
(when) they’re already being squeezed in terms of farm income,” he said.
USDA’s proposed budget for fiscal 2017, which begins Oct. 1,
includes $126 billion in mandatory spending and about $25 billion in
discretionary spending. The mandatory spending is for programs such as crop
insurance, nutrition assistance, farm commodities, trade, and conservation. Obama’s
spending plan for the U.S. government as a whole is $4.1 trillion.
In a conference call, Vilsack highlighted increases for
agricultural research and the launch of a new summer feeding program for
disadvantaged children – two proposals he said he hoped Congress would take
seriously.
He also noted that the budget proposal for fiscal 2017
would change the way wildland fire management is conducted. The plan funds
suppression for the most severe fire activity, including large fires that
require emergency response, are near urban areas, and for abnormally active
fire seasons, “as extraordinary costs that are outside the discretionary budget
caps,” USDA said. “The budget recognizes such fires as natural disasters.
Importantly, because this funding would not allow the total funding available
under existing cap adjustments to grow, it would not increase overall
discretionary spending.”
Vilsack also said he hopes Congress approves funding to put
USDA in Cuba, “a market American agriculture should dominate.” In 2014, Cuba
imported over $2 billion in agricultural products including $300 million from
the U.S.
“USDA needs an in-country presence in Cuba to
cultivate key relationships, gain firsthand knowledge of the country’s
agricultural challenges and opportunities, and develop programs of mutual
benefit to both countries,” the department’s budget summary said. Vilsack could
not provide specific details of how the “in-country presence” would work.
“The goal here is to alert Congress to the fact that
there is an expanded trade opportunity available in Cuba,” Vilsack said. “I
don’t think we currently have the authority to fund personnel” there. “That’s
why we’re asking for this in the appropriations process to essentially provide
us congressional directive.”
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition praised
the budget request for “preserving farm bill funding for private lands
conservation programs, including the Conservation Stewardship Program and the
Environmental Quality Incentives Program. For the first time in years, the
budget proposes no new cuts to these critical programs.”
NSAC also was pleased with the proposed increases in
research funding. In addition to seeking a boost for the Agriculture and Food
Research Initiative (AFRI), spending for the Sustainable Agriculture Research
and Education (SARE) program would go from $24.7 million to $30 million.
The budget would boost funding for agricultural research in
three areas:
·
$700
million for grants through USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative
(AFRI), including $325 million in mandatory funding, double the 2016 funding
level. “AFRI-supported research would enable USDA to respond to critical
problems and challenges facing the nation such as ensuring an abundant supply
of safe water for agricultural uses, responding to climate change,
understanding and restoring soil health, and improving food safety and
quality,” the president’s budget proposal said.
·
$1.2 billion for “in-house research”
at the Agricultural Research Service, which includes increases for current and
new programs for climate change resilience and vulnerability, pollinator
health, agricultural microbiomes, responding to antimicrobial resistance, as
well as research on foreign animal diseases, soil health, avian influenza, and for
safe and abundant water supplies to support agricultural production,” the
president’s budget said.
·
$94.5 million for “construction and
renovation of key infrastructure investments based on USDA’s facility
modernization plan,” according to the president’s budget. USDA said the
proposal would fund “modernization of the Foreign Disease – Weed Science
Research Laboratory, where scientists research foreign plant pathogens that
pose a potential threat to American agriculture.”
·
Another
area that would get an increase is antimicrobial resistance. USDA would boost
funding to $61 million, “an increase of about $35 million to address
antimicrobial resistance in pathogens of humans and livestock, and to seek
answers to key questions about the relationships among microbes and livestock,
the environment, and human health.”
The Food
and Drug Administration, is asking for $5.1 billion for the next fiscal
year, including increases of $14.6 million in budget authority and $268.7
million in user fees “for initiatives tied to several key areas, including the implementation
of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and efforts to improve medical
product safety and quality,” FDA said.
Both the user fee proposal and the amount of funding
for food safety drew fire from the National
Association of State Departments of Agriculture. “The $25.3
million increase for FDA’s food safety activities … moves in the right
direction, but falls far short of the next investment needed in our new
preventive approach to food safety for public health,” NASDA CEO Barbara Glenn
said. “The $104.5 million appropriated by Congress in December was a great down
payment on the programs needed to implement (FSMA). States need a similar
increased investment for FY17.” States will need about $100 million in
FY17 to meet the goals of FSMA, she said.
“NASDA is also deeply disappointed by the inclusion of user
fees in this year’s budget request,” she said. “User fees have never been
supported by NASDA, Congress, or other industry stakeholders. The continued
request for user fees by the administration undermines FDA’s efforts to
effectively implement FSMA in a timely manner. Without sufficient support of
FSMA from the President and Congress, we are setting our producers up for
failure.”
American Soybean Association President Richard Wilkins
pointed out the association’s disapproval in the budget’s 22 percent cut to
funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the maintenance and
construction of locks and dams on the nation’s waterways. The budget cuts more
than 41 percent from the Corps’ construction account, $2.7 billion from the
operations and maintenance account, and fails to fund the Navigation Ecosystem
Sustainability Program (NESP), a priority for ASA.
Also in the budget proposal, the Land and Water Conservation
Fund, would be fully funded at $900 million. The LWCF is funded by offshore oil
and gas drilling fees, and distributes grants and matching funds to federal,
state and local governments to buy land to establish parks and protect wildlife
habitat. The LWCF’s authorization lapsed in September, but was reauthorized in
the December omnibus bill for three years despite significant GOP opposition
led by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah.
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