The Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program serving 6.7 million poor people could run out of money within a few days if Congress cannot agree to fund the government beyond Saturday, said a USDA official. In a repeat of the Trump era, a shutdown also could derail the monthly USDA crop report, but a USDA contingency plan says meat inspectors would stay on the job.
Republican leaders in the House said they will try to pass four appropriations bills, including the USDA-FDA bill, this week. Lawmakers are far behind schedule to enact government funding bills before the Oct. 1 start of the new fiscal year. An alternative, to keep the government running in the short term, was under discussion.
The White House told departmental and agency leaders to prepare for a possible shutdown at the end of this week. At the USDA, some employees would be expected to work without pay and others would be told to stay home.
“A shutdown risks loss of access to WIC nutrition assistance for the nearly 7 million pregnant and post-partum women, infants, and children who rely on the program,” said a USDA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Food and Nutrition Service, the agency that oversees public feeding programs, “likely does not have sufficient funding to support normal WIC operations beyond a few days into a shutdown.”
WIC provides supplemental food packages and healthcare referrals to low-income pregnant women, new mothers, and their children up to age 5. At latest count, 6.7 million people were enrolled with an average food benefit of $55.83 per month per person. Participation has been been higher than expected, so the White House has proposed an additional $1.4 billion for WIC in fiscal 2024 on top of the $6.3 billion that it originally requested.
SNAP recipients “will continue to receive funds through October,” said the USDA official.
According to USDA contingency plans, the Food Safety and Inspection Service would continue “regulatory inspection of meat, poultry, and egg products that is mandated by law,” with nearly 7,700 of the agency’s 8,600 employees listed as “personnel essential to the functioning of food safety operations in the nation’s food supply.” By law, packing plants cannot operate without federal meat inspection.
A shutdown would interrupt data collection for the crop report due Oct. 12, with the fall harvest in full swing and questions about the size of the corn and soybean crops due to dry weather as the crops matured. Corn and soybeans are the most widely grown U.S. field crops.
The USDA did not publish its monthly Crop Production report or the companion WASDE report in January 2019 during a 34-day shutdown, the longest ever, during the Trump administration. That was the second time that WASDE was canceled. The first was in October 2013, during a 16-day shutdown that forced the first cancellation of a crop report in 147 years. In 2019, the USDA said estimates from January would be incorporated into the February crop report.
Over the weekend, House Republican leaders set Friday as the target for a vote on the USDA-FDA appropriations bill, followed by votes on the other three bills, reported Roll Call. There were a combined 440 amendments to the four bills authorized for debate, including 102 on the USDA-FDA bill.
Among the USDA-FDA amendments, according to a House Rules Committee summary, were proposals to slash or eliminate funding for food aid overseas; to prohibit USDA from buying electric vehicles or spending money on climate change or green energy initiatives; to cut to $1 the salaries of Stacy Dean, who oversees USDA nutrition programs, and a handful of FDA officials; to eliminate state authority to exempt some able-bodied adults from a 90-day limit on food stamp benefits; and to ban development of new Covid vaccines.