Cornerstone Report from Washington

June 24, 2009

Analysis of House Agriculture Appropriations Bill Markup

In our last report (Jun. 19), we provided a table showing the line-by-line results for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) from the House Appropriations Committee’s markup of the F.Y. 2010 Agriculture Appropriations bill. This report provides additional analysis of the NIFA results.

Top Line Results

This bill provides funding for all USDA agencies (except the U.S. Forest Service), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other smaller agencies. Overall funding for the agencies/programs in the bill is governed by an allocation provided by the full Appropriations Committee to each of the subcommittees. The Agriculture Subcommittee received an allocation of $22.900 billion for F.Y.2010. This was an increase of $2.277 billion over the final F.Y. 2009 allocation.

A portion of the increase went to NIFA, with the agency receiving a $31.335 million(3.52%)  increase compared to F.Y. 2009. Table 1 shows how certain other agencies/programs fared.

Table 1. Increases in House F.Y. 2010 Agriculture Appropriations Bill.

The House Appropriations Committee’s priorities are clear. Five of the seven programs with the largest net increases are related to food/nutrition or food safety. The two other agencies/programs receiving percentage increases greater than NIFA were FSA, for urgently needed IT work, and Rural Rental Assistance, a low income rental subsidy program.

Presidential Initiatives

As reported in an earlier report (May 8), the President’s Budget Request proposed a “Rural and Farm Economic Growth” Initiative involving several USDA agencies, including NIFA). The NIFA portion of the Initiative totaled $70 million and included five existing funding lines and one new Extension program (“Improved Rural Quality of Life Grants”).

It should be noted that even with the $70 million proposed by the President in NIFA for this Initiative, his overall proposal for the agency was a net decrease of $55 million.

Table 2. NIFA Programs Within “Rural and Farm Economic Growth Initiative”*

*“The budget includes a $70 million increase for competitive research grants that provide incentives for teachers to pursue professional development, and to enhance existing rural research and extension programs at land-grant and minority-serving institutions.”

As illustrated in Table 2, the House Appropriations Committee agreed to the requested increases for the three Minority-Serving Institutions accounts ($7 million or 10% of the total), but did not agree to provide the remaining 90% of the funding requested by the President. The three NIFA lines that did not receive increases were not the only elements of the President’s Rural and Farm Economic Growth Initiative that were not funded at the requested amount:

Table 3.  “Rural and Farm Economic Growth” Programs.

*These accounts also receive mandatory funding under the 2008 Farm Bill.

As you can see from Tables 2 and 3, the House Committee chose not to provide any increased funding for most of the programs included within the President’s proposed “Rural and Farm Economic Growth” Initiative. The  programs that did not receive increases would have required changes to authorizations to implement and/or were considered “new starts,” and generally were not funded (e.g. Secondary/2-year Post Secondary, Improved Rural Quality of  Life Grants, Rural Microenterprise Investment, and Biorefinery Assistance).

Beyond this essential fact, we believe there are three reasons why the Presidential Initiatives for NIFA and “rural and farm economic growth did not gain “traction” with the committee:

§  First, the President’s budget was long delayed. Usually delivered to Capitol Hill on the first Monday in February, the F.Y. 2010 Budget Request was not sent up to the Hill until May 8 due to the Presidential transition.

§  Second, the committee intended to stick as close as possible to its previously announced markup schedule with the hope of completing action on many appropriations measures prior to the start of the new fiscal year. This meant that they had little time to consider any new initiatives.

§  Third, the delay meant that the Budget Request was received after the deadlines set in the House for representatives to make programmatic requests to the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittees. So, there were few (if any) “requests” from members to support the initiatives.

Cornerstone contacted the House and Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittees to express the system’s strong support for the proposed increased of $70 million in NIFA programs.

NIFA Results

1.       Earmarks.

For the third year in a row, the House Appropriations Committee reduced both the number and dollar value of special research grants and federal administration (research and extension) grants at NIFA. These grants, often referred to as “earmarks,” were reduced by a total of $18.2 million compared to F.Y. 2009.

2.       Research and Education Activities.

There was a net increase of $16.961 million over F.Y. 2009. However, some $14.751 of “earmark” monies were redistributed to other NIFA Research/Education funding lines, permitting increases for: (1) Hatch Act +$7.894M; (2) McIntire-Stennis +$0.465M; (3) Evans-Allen +$2.496M; (4) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative +$8.496M; (5) Hispanic Education Partnership Grants +$3.763M; (6) 1890 Capacity Building Grants +$5.000M; (7) Resident Instruction Grants for Insular Areas +$0.200M; (8) New Era Rural Technology Program +$0.250M; and (9) Veterinary Medical Services Act +$1.050M. In addition, two new line items were added: (1) Distance Education Grants for Insular Areas = $1.000M; and (2) Sun Grant Program = $3.000M.

3.       Extension Activities.

There was a net increase of $11.216M over F.Y. 2009 (which does not account for extension related increases in AFRI and the 1890s Capacity Building Program). Like Research-related earmarks, the Committee reduced Extension’s federal administration grants by $3.440 million with the monies redistributed to other Extension-related programs. This permitted increases for: (1) Smith-Lever 3(b)-(c)  +$6.452M; (2) EFNEP +$1.845M; (3) Youth at Risk +$0.200M; (4) 1890s Extension +$3.850M; (5) 1890s Facilities Grants +$3.000M; and (6) 1994s Extension +$1.000M.

4.       Integrated Activities.

There was a net increase of $3.158 million for Integrated Activities, all of which was attributed to an increase in the Organic Transition Program.

BAC Priorities

As reported in an earlier report (Jun. 11), the BAC’s Priorities for F.Y. 2010 fared very well in the marks set by the House Appropriations Committee. Of the BAC’s 13 priorities, 9 would receive increases.

Table 4. BAC F.Y. 2010 Priorities vs. House Markup

Mandatory Funding Programs

The 2008 Farm Bill established four new mandatory research/extension programs to be administered by NIFA. In total, these four programs are scheduled to receive $117 million in funding in F.Y. 2010. The House Committee did not make any reductions to these four programs, equating to an additional $117 million for important NIFA research, education, and extension programs over the total provided via direct appropriations. (It should be noted that other mandatory programs did receive some reductions.)

Table 5. House Makes No Reductions to NIFA’s Mandatory Funding Lines

Next Steps

Congress is in recess next week for the July 4th holiday. The current schedule calls for the Agriculture Appropriations bill to be considered by the entire House of Representatives after the July 4th break. The Senate is scheduled to markup its version of the F.Y. 2010 Agriculture Appropriations bill during the week of July 6th in subcommittee and full committee. A  joint House-Senate conference committee is expected to meet in September to reconcile differences in the two bills.

As always, we will be sure to keep you informed as further developments occur.

The Cornerstone Team