Subcommittee markup.
| Department of Agriculture (USDA) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Increases | ||
| Program | (millions of $) | Description |
| Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) | +15 | FSIS inspects meat, poultry, and egg product plants to ensure food safety nationwide. Several States have their own equivalent inspection program, and FSIS shares in the cost of these programs. Increases are needed to support increased production and demand for services. |
| Rental Assistance Grants | +74 | The Budget provides funding to renew the rental assistance grant contracts at $1.7 billion. This prevents the default of the $9 billion in USDA underwritten multifamily housing direct loans, that depend on the rental assistance grants for the debt service. |
| Cuts, Reductions, and Consolidations | ||
| Program | (millions of $) | Description |
| National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) | -602 | The Budget eliminates programming in NIFA, such as activities related to climate change, renewable energy, and promoting DEI in education that were prioritized under the Biden Administration. In addition, the Budget reduces funding for formula grants. Instead, the Budget focuses on the merit-based Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. The Budget protects funding to youth and K-12 programs such as 4-H clubs, tribal colleges, and universities. It also ensures HBCUs are amply funded. |
| Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and USDA Research Statistical Agencies | -159 | The Budget reduces funding for research sites across the Nation and reduces funding for research projects. The Budget also makes small reductions to the Economic Research Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service to stop climate research added by the Biden Administration while ensuring some analysis and data collection continues. |
| Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS)—Private Lands Conservation Operations | -754 | The Budget eliminates discretionary funding for conservation technical assistance. While funding has helped producers deploy conservation practices on their lands, many have been forced to participate in the program in order to comply with State environmental regulations such as California’s Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program, which regulates agricultural runoff. |
| NRCS Watershed Operations | -16 | The Budget eliminates funding to renovate locally owned dams in the NRCS Watershed Programs. These programs received an influx of funding through IIJA. Currently, there is over $100 million in unobligated balances between the two programs. |
| Rural Development Programs | -721 | Infrastructure loans are prioritized for aging rural water and wastewater systems, as well as technical assistance through the “Circuit Rider” program balanced with reductions in the grants. Other specialty water grants and earmarks are not funded except where the tax base cannot support loans, including maintaining funding for Native American Tribes. Community facility grants are eliminated, as the Congress has been earmarking nearly 100 percent of them. No new USDA funding is needed for broadband expansion. The Budget would also eliminate rural business programs, single family housing direct loans, self-help housing grants, telecommunications loans, and rural housing vouchers. Rural Development salaries and expenses are reduced commensurately. |
| Farm Service Agency (FSA) Salaries and Expenses: Farm Production and Conservation-Business Center (FPACBC) | -358 | The first Trump Administration placed the FSA, NRCS, and Risk Management Agency under one umbrella: FPAC-BC. The staff-heavy FSA struggles with hiring due in part because of labor market competition. The Budget reduces funding in order to reflect the Agency’s plans for efficiencies, which include improving online services. |
| National Forest System Management | -392 | The Budget reduces salaries and expenses by $342 million, and saves an additional $50 million by eliminating funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, and reducing funding for recreation, vegetation and watershed management, and land management regulation. The Budget fully supports the Executive Order 14225, “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” to improve forest management and increase domestic timber production. The requested funding level supports timber sales, hazardous fuels removal, mineral extraction, grazing, and wildlife habitat management. |
| Forest Service Operations | -391 | The Budget reduces funding for expenses including salaries and facility leases to streamline the Agency’s management structure and reduce their real property footprint. |
| State, Local, Tribal, and NGO Conservation Programs | -303 | The Budget reduces grant programs that subsidize management of State and privately-owned forests. While the Budget provides reduced support for Federal wildland fire management activities, these partners should be encouraged to fund their own community preparedness and risk mitigation activities. |
| Forest and Rangeland Research (Except Forest Inventory and Analysis) | -300 | The President has pledged to manage national forests for their intended purpose of producing timber. The Budget reduces funding for the Forest and Rangeland Research program because it is out of step with timber production, but maintains funding for Forest Inventory and Analysis, a longstanding census of forest resources and conditions. |
| Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) | -425 | The Budget ends CSFP and replaces it with MAHA food boxes. The MAHA food boxes provide food directly to seniors. Unlike the current approach using food banks, which provide those in need with shelf-stable foods, MAHA boxes would be filled with commodities sourced from domestic farmers and given directly to American households. |
| McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program | -240 | The McGovern-Dole Food for Education program buys agricultural commodities from U.S. farmers and donates them in the form of foreign aid. Only a small portion of the program’s funding goes toward purchasing U.S. commodities, given the high transportation costs and large portion of funding provided for technical assistance. While these donated commodities totaled only $37 million in 2023 (0.01 percent of all U.S. crop sales), they undercut commodity prices in markets abroad. The elimination of this program is consistent with the elimination of other in-kind international food donation programs in the Budget, including Food for Progress and Food for Peace Title II Grants. |
House Appropriations Committee
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
06/05/2025 at 10:30AM
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