The Biden administration cannot be trusted to spend tax dollars prudently, and Congress ought to block the USDA’s access to the $30 billion reserve fund it used to launch a climate mitigation initiative, said the chair of a House Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday. The Republican-controlled Congress restricted Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s access to the fund for five years during the Obama administration.
“My opinion, it probably should be removed again,” said Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture. “If you thought this was such an important program, my opinion, you should have come to Congress and asked to spend on it.”
“We have every right to do what we did,” responded Vilsack during a six-minute exchange in which the two men talked over and interrupted each other. “Let’s make a deal: I’ll say the word ‘question mark’ when it’s your turn,” said Harris at one point when Vilsack disagreed with him. Vilsack appeared before the subcommittee to discuss the proposed USDA budget for fiscal 2024.
Harris was among 10 House Republicans who signed a letter to Vilsack last Oct. 28 to protest the $3.1 billion taken from the USDA reserve — the Commodity Credit Corp., nicknamed “USDA’s bank” — to bankroll the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative. “USDA’s unilateral move has raised questions about current and future congressional oversight of CCC funding,” said the letter.
In opening the hearing, Harris said the USDA had “unilaterally” increased SNAP benefits through “a quick, politically driven” recalculation of the cost of a healthy diet, and had “treated the Commodity Credit Corp. like a slush fund to advance political priorities not directed by Congress,” among them the 141 climate-smart pilot projects.
“This reckless unauthorized use of taxpayer dollars deserves scrutiny in today’s hearing and calls into question whether this administration can be trusted with any discretionary authority under the Corporation’s Charter Act in future fiscal years,” said Harris.
Congress directed the USDA in the 2018 farm law to update the Thrifty Food Plan, the foundation for calculating SNAP benefits. Republican lawmakers contend the USDA broke precedent by concluding the review with an increase in benefits of 40 cents per meal, per person; previous updates were cost neutral. Earlier this week, before the House Agriculture Committee, Vilsack said the congressional list of objectives for the review did not mention cost. The 2021 update increased SNAP costs by $20 billion.
Congress restricted the USDA’s powers to tap the CCC during President Obama’s second term, from 2012-17. Republicans said the USDA had unfairly tried to help Senate Agriculture chair Blanche Lincoln, a Democrat, win re-election in 2010 by launching a cotton support program. The limitations were removed while Trump was in office, which gave him the freedom to spend $23 billion on trade war payments to farmers in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
To watch the House hearing or to read Vilsack’s written testimony, click here.