In a Senate Appropriations Committee business meeting on Thursday, senators discussed the impacts of the fiscal year 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
00:00I would like to move to the Ag Appropriations Bill, and that is my intent, but we will come back to the CJS bill.
00:13I realize there are also a couple of amendments separate that still need to be offered.
00:20So, we will set that aside temporarily, and we will now turn to consideration of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food, and Drug Administration-related agencies bill.
00:32I want to thank Senators Hovind and Shaheen for working together on this bill and their staff as well.
00:40This bill is essential to supporting our farmers, ensuring that our food supply is safe, and promoting public health.
00:48I now would recognize Vice Chair Murray if she would like to offer a few comments on the bill.
00:54Well, thank you very much.
00:55I want to also thank Chair Hovind and Ranking Member Shaheen for putting together a very good bill that rejects reckless proposals to slash and eliminate programs that support rural communities and families,
01:06and instead keeps our families fed and our farms flourishing.
01:09This bill fully funds WIC at projected participation levels with no benefits cuts, and provides targeted increases for ag research, rural housing, and food safety,
01:20and rejects damaging calls to eliminate international food aid programs, voluntary conservation support for farmers and ranchers,
01:27and food boxes that feed hundreds of thousands of seniors.
01:31It invests in America from helping farmers grow to helping our economy grow and to helping our kids and our families grow.
01:37Thank you, Madam Chair, and also thanks to the Ranking Member.
01:49I appreciate it.
01:50Also, I want to begin by thanking the Ranking Member on the subcommittee, Senator Shaheen.
01:56She and I have worked together, actually, on a number of the subcommittees,
02:00and I really appreciate the spirit with which she's always approached these issues.
02:04And I think it's so important.
02:06I think the very spirit that she uses reflects our need to work together across the board
02:10if we want to be able to get these appropriate bills to the floor, get them passed, and actually have regular order.
02:17And so, again, I just want to thank you, Ranking Member Shaheen, and your staff,
02:22which worked very hard on this bill, along with my crew, led by Morgan Ulmer.
02:28They may be a little sleep-deprived, but they worked really hard, and they did, I think, a very good job
02:35and are greatly appreciated.
02:37Overall, the funding is exactly the same as last year.
02:40This committee unanimously approved last year $21.7 billion,
02:46and that is exactly what we are bringing forward this year.
02:49Now, that's about 1% above enacted.
02:52In the CR, it was a little bit less.
02:55But we're right there, like I say, about 1% difference.
02:59And this is the exact same number you all approved unanimously last year in this committee.
03:04Biggest increase is WIC.
03:06That's up almost 7%, about $500 million, which is a lot, is a big increase in our budget.
03:15And so we had to find savings in other areas because of that.
03:18And I understand that WIC has a lot of support on both sides of the aisle,
03:23but we have to be mindful of how much it has increased each year
03:26and then how that creates stress on other areas of the budget.
03:31But we did fully fund WIC and found other areas to reduce to offset that.
03:39Also, we fully fund both NIFA and ARS.
03:45Ag research is vital.
03:47It has strong support on both sides of the aisle.
03:50I grew up in western North Dakota, and at that time we could grow wheat and barley and oats,
03:57and we were scratching it out, and that was about it.
04:00And now in my state we grow about 40 different major commodities
04:05because of the research that's been done, the better seed varieties and the pesticides
04:10and all the things that go into being able to grow America's food supply.
04:16So for me, it's amazing, and I've seen it up close throughout my whole life,
04:22the impact that ag research has on behalf of our farmers and ranchers and our food supply,
04:28of course, which benefits every single American.
04:30We also fully fund APHIS to make sure that we're managing disease and pests.
04:36Two that have been top of mind and very much in the news lately is the avian influenza
04:43and the new world screw worm.
04:45Obviously, we need to make sure that those things are addressed, and we do.
04:49We also protect our food supply by fully funding FSIS, the Food Safety Inspection Service, and FDA.
04:57So when it comes to food and drugs, we can't take any chances, and we don't.
05:03As I said, because of those things, we had to find other areas where we made some reductions.
05:09We tried to do that well and fairly and in a bipartisan way to keep our budget within the 302B,
05:17which we were given, which I say is exactly the same number as last year approved by this committee.
05:22Last thing I'll say is this.
05:24We have a family-based system, or a system that is made up of family farms and ranches across this country.
05:34It's one of the industries in our country that hasn't been taken over by a few big companies.
05:39And when we pass good farm policy, we make sure we're going to continue to have a network of family-based farms and ranches,
05:46small businesses, rather than just a few controlling everything.
05:48And so when we're dealing with these kind of bills, that's how important it is.
05:52Every American benefits every single day from the highest quality, lowest-cost food supply
05:56from that system of farms and ranches across this country.
06:00And so when you support this bill, that's exactly what you're supporting.
06:04And so with that, again, I'd like to thank Senator Shaheen.
06:07And that concludes my comments.
06:10Senator Shaheen.
06:11Well, thank you very much, Chair Collins.
06:15And Senator Hoeven, thank you for being such a great partner.
06:19I think Senator Hoeven and I have tried to model our work on the Ag Committee on the good work
06:26that Chair Collins and Vice Chair Murray do at the total committee level to find compromise and work together.
06:35And I think we've done that in this bill.
06:38This continues, as Senator Hoeven said, the bipartisan promise to fully fund the WIC program,
06:46supporting the projected increased participation in WIC,
06:50and maintaining the full fruit and vegetable benefit, which I think is really important.
06:56It also provides critical support for rural communities who are experiencing an affordable housing crisis.
07:03This is a huge issue in New Hampshire, as it is, I know, in so many other parts of the country.
07:08The bill fully funds rental assistance so that participating families can remain housed,
07:14and it provides financing funding that's available for very low-income homebuyers,
07:22many of whom are first-time homeowners.
07:24It also preserves voluntary conservation tools that are used by farmers in New Hampshire.
07:33Farming in New England is obviously very different than farming in North Dakota,
07:38but it's all critical, as Senator Hoeven said,
07:42to maintaining the food supply that's so important in this country.
07:46The bill continues our commitment to international food aid programs
07:50and programs that help farmers reach new markets and feed the hungry across the globe.
07:55It also provides vital funding for the Food and Drug Administration
07:58to stay ahead of the curve on approving medical products
08:02and regulating our food supply while protecting the public health of the American people.
08:07Now, as a number of people have said,
08:09if each of us were going to write an appropriations bill,
08:13I'm sure we would all do it differently than the bill that's before us,
08:18but this is a compromise.
08:20It's one that I think has tried to address the biggest concerns on both sides of the aisle
08:28and what we've heard from our colleagues,
08:30and I think it is a bill that is important.
08:35And also, I hope one of the things that this bill does is it considers potential rescissions
08:47and discretionary spending on a bipartisan basis.
08:52I hope that as people are considering a rescission package in the next few weeks,
08:58that they will keep in mind that under our normal appropriations process,
09:03we do do rescissions.
09:05So, there's no need to do a separate rescission package
09:08because we incorporate that into what we do every time we do appropriations.
09:15So, to close, I'd like to again thank Chair Hoven.
09:19He and I have worked together since we were governors together.
09:21So, it's been, we won't say how long.
09:24John?
09:27You weren't supposed to tell.
09:282000.
09:29Yeah, just, it's kind of impressive.
09:31You were very, very young then, too.
09:32Yes, both of us.
09:33But it, that's 20.
09:35No gray hair.
09:35That is 25 years.
09:36Yes, that's right.
09:39And as he said, have also worked together on a number of other appropriations subcommittees.
09:44So, I also want to thank his staff, Morgan Allmer, Lindsay Morris, and Macy Kelly, as well as mine,
09:51Hart Clements, Rachel Erlbacher, and Claire Wingrod.
09:55As Chairman Hoven said, they did yeoman's work in very little time with very little sleep,
10:03and we really appreciate that strong bipartisan effort.
10:06Thank you all very much.
10:09I will now turn to Chair Hoven for a manager's package.
10:15Madam Chair, I'd like to offer a manager's package, containing amendments for the Ag Bill.
10:20This package has been negotiated and agreed to by both sides, and I ask that it be adopted by unanimous consent.
10:27Is there any objection?
10:28If not, the manager's package is agreed to.
10:36Are there other members who wish to offer an amendment to this bill or speak on this bill?
10:43Senator Merkley.
10:45Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I appreciate the work on the manager's amendment,
10:49and it's been a privilege to work with Senator McConnell on hemp.
10:52We first brought to this committee the idea that research should be done on hemp,
10:58and then later we put in an amendment that proceeded to allow seeds to be transferred across states,
11:05and now there is a hemp industry.
11:09So Senator McConnell has proposed and is in the bill a new definition of hemp,
11:14and I appreciate that the implementation has been agreed to be delayed by a year.
11:21My concern about the amendment or the definition as written is that it addresses one very important issue
11:29but causes another problem.
11:31The important issue it addresses is not allowing hemp to be grown to produce hallucinogenic products,
11:38and that, unfortunately, due to the magic of laboratories, has occurred.
11:44But then there are other products that come from hemp, such as CBD,
11:50that has, in fact, been a significant factor as a health care supplement in many, many products across America
11:58that does not have a hallucinogenic effect.
12:01So I would like to continue to work with Senator McConnell to see if we can develop,
12:06in this course of this year, a definition that addresses the hallucinogenic factors but does not eliminate the CBD product
12:16that is non-hallucinogenic that is valued by many Americans across the land.
12:24Senator McConnell.
12:25Thank you, Madam Chair.
12:28To give you an overview, in the 2018 Farm Bill,
12:35federally legalized hemp as an agricultural product.
12:39This language had an unintended consequence that has allowed for intoxicating hemp-derived synthetic products
12:50to be made and sold across our country.
12:54These flooded the market in the absence of a regulatory structure
13:00and often used deceptive and predatory marketing towards children
13:06with packaging and logos similar to existing food products,
13:12such as Oreos, candy gummies, and cereals.
13:17The way I see it, the language I helped secure Texas back to the original intent of the 2018 Farm Bill
13:25and closes this loophole.
13:29My 2018 Farm Bill, Hemp Bill, sought to create an agricultural hemp industry,
13:37not open the door to the sale of unregulated intoxicating lab-made hemp-derived substances
13:45with no safety framework.
13:49Pleased to work with Senator Merkley to include a one-year implementation timeline
13:55to help give our hemp farmers ample time to prepare for their future.
14:01The language, including in today's bill,
14:04keeps these products out of the hands of children,
14:08secures the future for regulated hemp businesses,
14:12and keeps our promise to American farmers
14:14by clarifying the intention of the 2018 Farm Bill.
