AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2024

On 2023-09-26, Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA-3) delivered a floor speech titled "AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2024" in the House. The speech addressed the economy and also covered taxes, the environment. It referenced legislation including HR4368, HRES66, HRES81, among other bills.

AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2024

Congressional Record, Volume 169 Issue 156 (Tuesday, September 26, 2023) [Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 156 (Tuesday, September 26, 2023)] [House] [Pages H4505-H4566] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2024 General Leave Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4368, and that I may include tabular material on the same. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins). Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Maryland? There was no objection. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 723 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 4368. The Chair appoints the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Bentz) to preside over the Committee of the Whole. {time} 2027 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 4368) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes, with Mr. Bentz in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIR. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the first time. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Maryland. {time} 2030 Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, I rise today to bring before the House H.R. 4368, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024 appropriations bill. I thank Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Granger and commend her for her leadership in moving this bill and the fiscal year 2024 appropriations process forward. I also recognize the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee (Ms. DeLauro), and the ranking member of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee (Mr. Bishop). I appreciate the conversations he and I have had regarding the bill. While I know we don't agree on everything, we have reached areas of consensus that will keep our ag communities strong. As Americans know all too well, our country continues to battle high inflation driven by the overspending of the last Congress and the Biden administration. The fiscal situation in the United States, in fact, has changed since the Appropriations Committee passed this bill in June. While we were on the August recess, the Congressional Budget Office projected the deficit to reach $2 trillion for this fiscal year, doubling last year's deficit of $1 trillion, and the deficit outlook for the future has gotten much worse. We simply cannot continue down this path of spending large sums of money without regard to the fiscal future of our Nation. This bill takes the same approach American families take every day. They simply have to do more with less under the Biden economy. American families decide every single day where to cut back spending to pay for what is most important for them. For them, those decisions are difficult. Likewise, we have to make tough, difficult decisions for the good of the Nation. This is why the rule implements further reductions totaling $2.7 billion across the discretionary accounts in this bill, except for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children, or WIC. With this reduction, the fiscal year 2024 Agriculture appropriation bill's discretionary allocation is $15.1 billion. By redirecting nearly $7.5 billion in unobligated funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, this bill funds the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with an effective program level of $22.5 billion--a decrease of 12.8 percent from the current fiscal year. This legislation prioritizes critical ag research and plant and animal health programs, invests in our rural communities, provides nutrition assistance to those in need, and ensures that American consumers have a safe food and drug supply. This legislation rejects the Biden administration's unrealistic proposed spending levels that disregard the dire fiscal reality our country faces. It also rejects the administration's continued push to bloat inside the beltway Federal bureaucracy by halting new hires in the Washington, D.C., office; instead, focusing on hiring an increased USDA workforce outside of the Capital Beltway in the offices that directly serve and support rural America. I will highlight a few areas where this legislation prioritizes essential functions while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars. [[Page H4506]] In regard to supporting the core mission, the bill provides $1 billion for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to support the Department's efforts to protect our producers from foreign plant and animal diseases. The bill continues to invest in the delivery of farm programs, disaster assistance, and crop insurance to farmers and ranchers by maintaining funding for the Farm Service Agency and the Risk Management Agency. The bill provides $1 billion for the Food Safety and Inspection Service to fund our Nation's frontline inspectors of meat and poultry products. We also continue to make important investments in critical agriculture research that will keep our producers on the cutting edge of technology and production practices. We continue to fund rural development programs, including critical infrastructure investments in water and wastewater systems, broadband, and rural housing programs. For the Food and Drug Administration, the bill provides just over $6 billion in direct appropriations and user fees to enable the agency to keep food, drugs, and medical devices safe and effective. The bill includes $296 million for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to continue to oversee and ensure the integrity of U.S. derivative markets. With regards to fiscal responsibility, at the same time, this legislation reins in some of the administration's wasteful, out-of- control spending. For instance, it removes the Secretary's discretionary use of the Commodity Credit Corporation to fund unauthorized, nonemergency programs by returning statutory language to its pre-COVID language that didn't have that discretionary authority. The CCC is not intended to allow USDA to completely bypass Congress in establishing new programs. Yet, the USDA apparently just can't help themselves, and that is exactly what they have been doing with the Commodity Credit Corporation. According to a recent article in AgriPost, the USDA intends to use the Commodity Credit Corporation to spend nearly $1.4 billion on trade programs and another $1.1 billion to pay for ``commodity-based international food aid.'' That sounds a lot like the Food for Peace program. Since the USDA has provided $1.1 billion for food aid that will be distributed during fiscal year 2024, the rule amendment reduces Food for Peace to $532 million. This bill will put an end to the habitual abuse of the CCC. In doing so, the bill saves $1 billion in fiscal year 2024 alone. Given that the USDA used these discretionary powers to spend another $2.5 billion and $6.6 billion in the last 2 fiscal years, respectively, I would submit to my colleagues that the real savings to taxpayers of taking these discretionary authorities away will be much higher than the CBO score. Mr. Chair, that is exactly what we need in times of the fiscal crisis we are in. Let me be clear: Restricting these authorities in the CCC will have no impact on farm bill and conservation programs, crop insurance, or the Secretary's ability to access the CCC in an animal or plant health emergency, the uses for which the program was created, not as a de facto slush fund for the department. All of those important duties and functions will continue under this bill. This legislation also rescinds wasteful spending from the Inflation Reduction Act. It is finally time to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars by rescinding these new government giveaways. We must work to rightsize programs, especially since the pandemic is over and President Biden ended the public health emergency in May. It, in fact, is time to return to pre-COVID spending levels. Perhaps, Mr. Chair, we can return to pre-COVID inflationary levels, too, which I am sure the American public would, indeed, welcome. Well, this is why we are returning the WIC cash value voucher benefits to a normal, sustainable inflation-adjusted funding level. The American Rescue Plan provided a one-time increase in these benefits due to the pandemic, but these increases continue to be built into the WIC program in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 after they were due to expire. Keeping these increases on autopilot adds an additional $1 billion to the program. This bill does provide cash value vouchers above prepandemic levels to help with the food price inflation caused by the Biden economy. With the end of the public health emergency, it is time to return this program to normal pre-COVID operations. On the regulatory front, this legislation puts a stop to USDA's efforts under the Packers and Stockyards Act to dictate how poultry and livestock producers raise and market their animals. This bill also prevents the purchase of farmland by our 

Referenced legislation: HRES66, HRES81, HRES90, HRES101, HRES723, HR4368