House Panel Approves Agriculture Spending Bill

On June 6, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies approved, by voice vote, the FY2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies spending bill (as-yet-unnumbered). The Senate Appropriations Committee passed its version of the legislation on April 26 (see The Source, 4/27/12).

The measure would include a total of $140.7 billion in funding for domestic and international nutrition programs, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and related agencies for FY2013, $3.7 billion above FY2012 and $14.3 billion below President Obama’s FY2013 budget request. The total amount includes $19.4 billion in discretionary funding, $365 million below FY2012 and $1.7 billion less than the president’s request.

According to the committee press release, the bill would include $6.9 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which provides funding for nutritional foods needed by women and their young children; the funding level is $303.5 million above FY2012 and $119 million below the president’s request. The measure would include “oversight and monitoring requirements to ensure the proper use of taxpayer dollars, as well as food price tracking to ensure necessary resources continue serving those eligible for program benefits.”

Child nutrition programs would receive $19.7 billion in mandatory funding, $1.5 billion above FY2012 and $38 million below the president’s request. Funding is included “for an estimated 5.7 billion free or reduced-price school lunches and snacks for children that qualify for the program.”

The bill would provide $80 billion in mandatory funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program), $408 million less than FY2012 and $2 billion less than the president’s request. The legislation would include new provisions aimed at reducing fraud, waste, and abuse in the SNAP program, such as “a requirement for states to include the fraud hotline number on all EBT [Electronic Benefit Transfer] cards, a directive to the secretary of Agriculture to ban fraudulent vendors, and a requirement for states to share data with enforcement agencies.”

The chart below compares FY2013 spending levels for programs important to women and their families in the House and Senate spending bills to FY2012 levels and the president’s request.