House committee-approved agriculture spending bill gives wins to LaHood, Womack

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved the fiscal year 2018 Agriculture Appropriations bill, which handed several Republican congressmen big national and state-side wins.

The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations bill would provide a total of more than $20 billion in discretionary funds. U.S. Reps. Darin LaHood (R-IL), Steve Womack (R-AR), Evan Jenkins (R-WV) and Tom Rooney (R-FL) each secured funding for initiatives they led.

Among the bill’s key provisions is funding for the Peoria Agriculture Research Lab in Illinois, where LaHood has fought to keep the lab open after President Donald Trump’s proposed FY 2018 budget called for its closure.

LaHood, along with U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL), had urged in a letter they sent June 5 to House appropriators to include federal funding for the lab by maintaining funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Buildings and Facilities account.

“The ARS operates through 17 national programs across 43 states and employs 5,522 permanent employees across the country, including 235 employees in two research facilities in Illinois,” the LaHood-Bustos letter said. “The vital research that is conducted at ARS facilities cannot be understated. For example, the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois houses innovative research in novel industrial and other food products and agricultural commodities.”

With Wednesday’s House passage of the agriculture spending bill, which included full funding for the Peoria lab, LaHood said their advocacy “truly paid off.”

Meanwhile, Womack recently introduced and had his Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) amendment passed as part of the agriculture appropriations bill.

The amendment addresses proper cost-benefit analysis at the CFTC and relieves overregulation of inter-affiliate swaps transactions, according to Womack, who serves on the House Appropriations Defense, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and Labor-Health and Human Services subcommittees and the House Budget Committee.

Pleased to see his “common sense amendment pass with such strong support,” Womack said the nation is “one step further in ensuring a bit of accountability at CFTC.”

Additionally, the Womack amendment would offer “major relief for some of these unintended consequences that have been forcing internal risk management transactions to undergo the same regulatory scrutiny as external, market-facing derivatives transactions,” he said.

All businesses must manage risk, but risk contained within an internal corporate structure shouldn’t be burdened by equal external oversight, Womack added.

Another amendment offered by Jenkins that added $5 million for the USDA to perform watershed rehabilitation projects in rural, flood-prone states like West Virginia also passed in the House-approved agriculture spending bill.

The funds will be used to rehabilitate aging dams and reduce flood, sedimentation and erosion damage, Jenkins said.

At the same time, several funding requests from Rooney also were approved under the agriculture appropriations bill for projects in his home state, including $53.8 million for the USDA’s Citrus Health Response Program, a nationwide effort to protect the citrus industry from invasive pests and diseases.

Generally, the House-approved agriculture appropriations bill is $876 million lower than the FY 2017 enacted level and $4.6 billion above the president’s budget request.