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Ag Approps bill introduced in Senate

The Ag Appropriations Bill was introduced on the Senate floor on Monday. Subcommittee chair Herb Kohl of Wisconsin introduced the $19.78 billion package which would fund the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration for FY 2012. The bill is 15 percent smaller than the FY 2011 spending plan and is the first appropriations bill to be introduced under the restrictions contained in the debt ceiling agreement earlier this summer. It is still more than the $17.25 billion package put forth in the House last June.

In introducing the bill, Senator Kohl called it a “very austere measure”; lower than last year and much lower than two years ago. The plan includes $6.6 billion for the WIC program, $2 billion for rural Development, nearly $1 billion for the Food Safety and Inspection Service, $2.2 billion for the FDA and $300 million for disaster relief. The plan maintains ag research funding and the PL 480 and McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program.

Senate leadership hopes to have the bill completed before they adjourn for a weeklong recess later this week.

One amendment already in the works from Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Mo Udall of Colorado would head-off USDA’s plan to reduce the amount of potatoes in the school lunch program. The new guidelines were designed to reduce the amount of starch in school lunches, Collins says USDA needs to come up with better ways to prepare the potato rather than limit or ban it.