Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018
Floor Speech
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Mr. Chairman, it is my distinct honor to bring the fiscal year 2018 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies bill before you today as part of the Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act.
I do want to thank Chairman Frelinghuysen for his commitment to the annual appropriations process. Under his steadfast leadership, the House is scheduled to vote on all 12 appropriations bills, which is an extraordinary achievement.
I would also like to thank Ranking Member Lowey and Ranking Member Bishop for their cooperative spirit. Mr. Bishop is the new ranking member for the Agriculture Subcommittee, and I have enjoyed working with him over the past several months as we have moved forward to try to help rural America and rural communities.
The Agriculture Appropriations bill responsibly targets funds to national programs that provide the most benefit to the American people and to the United States economy. The bill received bipartisan support throughout the process, even though much of the funding and policies reflect a conservative policy.
The overall total for both discretionary and mandatory spending in the bill equals $144.9 billion. That is $4.1 billion above the President's request and $8.6 billion below the FY17 enacted level. The bill includes $20 billion in discretionary budget authority, which is $1.1 billion below the FY17 enacted level when adjusting for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The mandatory funds in this bill support USDA's farm production, conservation, crop insurance, and nutrition programs.
I would like to thank all the Members who have submitted requests and gave input as we have moved forward and crafted this legislation.
Knowing what programs Members are interested in has helped us direct funding to support rural communities across the country and also combat animal and plant pests and disease threats, promote U.S. agricultural exports, support food safety and medical product safety, provide U.S. commodities to those in need overseas, and address the critical needs of research.
We protected our most vulnerable populations in this bill by providing funding for all of USDA's nutrition programs at levels that ensure all eligible participants will receive the nutrition assistance that they need. We made sure that the farm loan programs will meet current estimates of demand during the current economic downturn in several areas of the farm economy.
Furthermore, the bill provides $5.2 billion to the Food and Drug Administration, including the preservation of nearly $2.8 billion in discretionary resources to assist the FDA in protecting and promoting public health. The bill continues to support the food safety activities associated with the Food Safety Modernization Act and provides $60 million in new funds to the 21st Century Cures Act.
In closing, I would like to especially thank the staff on the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, my personal staff, the minority staff, and Mr. Bishop's staff.
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Mr. Chairman, I am very sympathetic to the gentleman from Iowa's concerns regarding the reduction in the bill's mandatory energy programs in the farm bill, in particular, the Rural Energy for America Program.
The gentleman from Iowa is indeed a valued member of our subcommittee, and he was very instrumental in developing many parts of the overall bill, and I appreciate his input greatly.
A number of factors went into our decision for which programs to reduce in order to achieve the $1.1 billion reduction in the bill's funding level over this last year.
As I did mention, as he noted, in our full committee markup, I committed to working with the gentleman from Iowa to see where we could find alternative offsets, and we will continue to do that as we move forward. So I thank the gentleman for bringing this to our attention again here on the floor of the House.
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Mr. Chair, the executive order on National Ocean Policy is an Obama administration policy. It lacks clear statutory authority. Instead of streamlining Federal management, it potentially adds layers of additional bureaucracy and Federal overreach.
The National Ocean Policy has the potential to harm both terrestrial and marine economic values by affecting sectors such as agriculture, fishing, construction, manufacturing, oil, gas, and renewable energy, among others.
This body has taken the position in the past to pause the implementation of the executive order on the National Ocean Policy as this uncertainty continues around the meaning of the policy, how will we implement it, and the unintended consequences.
The policy was developed unilaterally by the prior administration without involving or consulting with Congress.
Additionally, the Natural Resources Committee has expressed concern about the policy, as did a letter signed by over 80 groups supporting the provision in the underlying bill. We are not saying that ocean policy in general does not make sense or is something that we could not support.
My home State of Alabama is a coastal State. All I am saying is that I think we need to revisit this policy, take a bottom-up approach by working with stakeholders, and have something work its way through Congress.
Working to resolve ocean management challenges should be nonpartisan and something that this Congress could achieve; therefore, I oppose the amendment and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. I agree, it appears that the Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration, known as GIPSA, is not currently implementing a provision from the 2015 Grain Standards Act Reauthorization.
Despite the efforts of my colleagues to try and work with the USDA to correct this interpretation, the agency continues down a path of unravelling a longstanding agreement that has allowed a designated official grain inspector to carry out inspections in another geographic area.
I hope this amendment sends a clear message to the Department that they are not following congressional intent, and they should reverse course. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for his continuous work on this issue, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
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Mr. Chair, I rise to support the gentleman's amendment. Each year, the Federal Government requires Davis-Bacon provisions on all sorts of constructions--as has already been mentioned, roads, bridges, dams, buildings, and the taxpayers pay more. You do the math. According to a recent study, Davis-Bacon inflates costs by 22 percent for construction costs. These added expenses come at a time when our Nation is nearly broke.
Therefore, I think it is time to put the taxpayers first, and I encourage my fellow Members to support this amendment.
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Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. I believe that schools should have more local control in operating their meal programs, including the establishment of the price a family must pay for the meal. School meal prices differ from one community to the next, and they take into account local food and local labor costs and what families are willing and able to pay. I think it is always best to let the local schools make those decisions.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the gentlewoman's amendment.
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Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the gentleman's amendment, which has gained bipartisan support in our full committee. I am very sympathetic to the gentleman's concerns, and I trust his judgment an his experience as, currently, the only pharmacist that is serving in the House of Representatives.
This bill language is similar to the language in our House report. While the underlying bill did not go as far as limiting funds to be spent on the finalization, implementation, or enforcement of the proposed memorandum of
understanding between the FDA and the States, our committee report language is conditional in that the FDA should not finalize the proposed rule if it fails to distinguish between distribution and dispensing a compounded product to a specific patient.
Dispensing is not defined in the Drug Quality and Security Act, and the FDA should not unilaterally take it upon themselves to start regulating the practice of pharmacy since this function is regulated by the State Boards of Pharmacy under the laws of the State legislatures.
Therefore, I support the intent of this amendment until FDA clarifies its policy, and I recommend the amendment's approval.
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Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the gentleman's amendment here. I support what the gentleman is doing with this amendment. I also appreciate his willingness to make a slight change to the amendment in order to maintain support from staff in embassies across the world that help USDA staff open markets to U.S. goods.
With that being said, I would like to urge my colleagues to support his amendment.
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