House approves $18.4 billion Agriculture spending bill

The House Tuesday night passed an $18.4 billion fiscal 2007 Agriculture appropriations bill that would stop the Agriculture Department from proceeding with plans to create a national animal identification program until it has satisfied concerns of the House Appropriations Committee. The vote was 378-46.

That $18.4 billion in discretionary spending is $96 million less than what is being spent this fiscal year, but $564 million more than President Bush's request. The bill also contains $76.1 billion in mandatory spending, primarily for farm subsides and food stamps.

In votes Tuesday evening, the House rejected, 281-135, an attempt by Reps. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., to curb the sugar program, and an attempt by Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., to restore acreage in the wetlands reserve program to the maximum 250,000 acres authorized by the 2002 farm bill.

But the major battle was over the USDA's National Animal Identification program, an attempt to establish a system under which each cow, pig and similar animal would be identified for the purpose of tracking animal disease quickly.

Since the first cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, was discovered in the United States in December 2003, the USDA has been trying to set up such a system but it has been contentious, particularly among cattle ranchers.

The spending bill would prohibit USDA from spending any funds on the program until Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns submits to the Appropriations Committee "a complete and detailed plan, including but not limited to proposed legislative changes, cost estimates and means of program evaluation."

But Agriculture Department officials have said they do not plan to make a cost estimate because the program requires ranchers and farmers to report the information to a private entity, not the government. Surprisingly, the Bush administration did not object to that provision in its Statement of Administration Policy on the bill.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, tried to stop all funding for the program, but was easily rebuffed 389-34 in the face of opposition from key lawmakers that included House Agriculture Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, and ranking member Rose DeLauro, D-Conn.

"If you don't think we need a national animal identification system, you've got your head in the sand," said Peterson.

Early in the day, three provisions of the bill were struck on points of order, including two that would have extended peanut warehousing and Milk Income Loss Contract programs that were part of the 2002 farm bill but which will sunset before that law expires.

If the programs are not extended, they will not be included in the budget baseline for the upcoming 2007 farm bill and make it less likely they will be renewed.

The points of order were sustained over objections from Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis. "This was done not for policy but as a gimmick to get around the budget act," he said of the sunsets. "There will be many small dairy farmers who will go out of business if they don't have the payments from that supplemental program."

The other point of order was raised by Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., against a provision DeLauro sponsored to authorize the FDA to mandate post-market studies of prescription drugs that it approves.

The bill also contains provisions to allow the reimportation of prescription drugs and prohibit the sale of discounted crop insurance.