Harris Remarks at FY25 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Bill Subcommittee Markup

Good evening. The Subcommittee will come to order. I want to welcome everyone to the Subcommittee Markup of the Fiscal Year 2025 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. 

I am pleased to be joined by our Subcommittee Ranking Member, Mr. Bishop, full committee Chairman Cole and Ranking Member DeLauro, and the Members of the Subcommittee.

As Americans know all too well, our country continues to grapple with inflation driven by the uncontrolled spending of the Biden Administration. We simply cannot continue down this path of providing large sums of money with no accountability. This bill takes the same approach American families take every day – they have to do more with less under the Biden economy.  American families decide every day where to cut back their spending to pay for what’s most important. Sometimes tough decisions have to be made.

For fiscal year 2025, the Subcommittee’s discretionary allocation for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is $25.873 billion, a $355 million, or 1.35%, decrease from fiscal year 2024.

This legislation supports critical ag research and plant and animal health programs, invests in rural communities, expands access to broadband, 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, inflationary spending levels that are detached from the dire fiscal reality our country faces. It also rejects the Administration’s continued push to bloat an already too large Federal bureaucracy.

I would like to highlight a few areas where this legislation prioritizes essential functions while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.

The bill provides $1.15 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 legislation 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 a $34 million increase for the Food Safety and Inspection Service to fund our Nation’s frontline inspectors of meat and poultry products.

The bill provides $7.235 billion for WIC – a $205 million increase over fiscal year 2024 to account for inflation caused by the Biden economy. Participation rates have been steady in recent months, and the program has significant carryover balances. I believe this increased funding level will serve all eligible participants, and USDA has a $150 million WIC contingency fund to meet any unexpected demand.

The bill also makes important investments in critical agricultural research that will keep our producers on the cutting-edge of technology and production practices. We maintain funding for USDA’s flagship competitive grant program, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.

This legislation continues to fund Rural Development programs, including critical infrastructure investments in water and wastewater systems, broadband, and additional investments in certain rural housing programs. The bill includes $100 million for ReConnect to complement existing funds to deploy broadband to the most underserved rural areas.

For the Food and Drug Administration, the bill provides $3.5 billion in direct appropriations, and with increased user fees, FDA has a total budget of $6.75 billion to enable the agency to keep food, drugs, and medical devices safe and effective.

The bill includes $345 million for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to continue to oversee and ensure the integrity of U.S. derivative markets.

At the same time, this legislation reins in the Biden Administration’s wasteful, out-of-control spending.

The bill provides $1 billion for the Food for Peace program, a $619 million decrease from fiscal year 2024. Before my colleagues on the other side of the aisle attempt to denounce this as a heartless cut, let us not forget that USDA transferred $1 billion from the Commodity Credit Corporation for the same purpose of providing international food aid. The Food for Peace program also has a carryover balance of $300 million. When you consider the time it takes for commodities to reach their international destination, the funding provided in this bill, plus Secretary Vilsack’s unauthorized transfer of funds from the CCC, -- the result will be a food program with more than sufficient funding.

Programs that have received significant increases through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and American Rescue Plan did not receive additional funding if sufficient balances remain available. We will continue to monitor the expenditure of these funds as the process moves forward.

On the regulatory front, this legislation reins in harmful regulations that increase the cost of doing business and make it harder to live and work in rural communities. This bill 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. It blocks revised energy standards for newly constructed homes financed by USDA that would increase costs for rural, lower-income households in an already constrained housing market.

It also builds on efforts to prevent the purchase of farmland by companies owned by our foreign adversaries by adding the Secretary of Agriculture to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for agricultural transactions, while providing funds for the Farm Service Agency to fulfill its duty to track foreign ownership of land.

The bill also prioritizes the health and nutritional needs of SNAP recipients by allowing states to voluntarily participate in a pilot program to restrict unhealthy food purchases with SNAP benefits. Let me be clear – this does not reduce funding for the program or reduce household benefits. This does not make a nation-wide program change. We know some states and cities have been interested in restricting unhealthy foods in the SNAP program, so this allows them to pilot the concept. This pilot would free up SNAP benefits to purchase healthier foods, like fruits and vegetables, and we encourage USDA to prioritize pilots that pair nutrition incentives with restrictions. Let’s pilot this idea, have an evaluation, and let’s see how this makes a difference in the health and lives of SNAP participants.

Finally, as I said earlier, this bill takes the same approach American families take every day – they have to do more with less under the Biden economy. American families decide every day where to cut back spending to pay for what’s most important. We are not appropriating Monopoly money – it’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars, and sometimes tough decisions have to be made.

In conclusion, I want to thank the staff on the Subcommittee and would note that the Subcommittee received nearly 8,000 Member requests touching every agency under our jurisdiction. The strong interest in this bill highlights its importance to the lives of all Americans. We have attempted to address both Republican and Democrat Member requests within the available budget through Community Project Funding, programmatic funding, and bill and report language.