The USDA-FDA appropriations bill awaiting a vote in the Senate “short-changes food safety needs” and “under-funds efforts to address the challenge of child poverty” while carrying harmful “ideological provisions,” said the White House budget office. In a letter to Appropriations chairman Thad Cochran, the administration said the Senate bill was $1 billion below the White House request for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The letter renewed a threat to veto bills that “block the investments we need for our economy to compete in the future.”
Budget director Shaun Donovan listed several areas of disagreement with the committee proposal. The FDA would get $304 million less than the White House requested, and the bill does not include funding or user fees to pay for implementation of the 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act. Nor does it provide enough money for USDA research on climate change, pollinator health and antibiotic resistance, said the letter.
“The administration strongly objects to using the appropriations process for objectionable language provisions,” wrote Donovan, citing as examples a provision to give waivers to school districts from a requirement that they use more whole grains in meals and language that would prevent the import of raw beef from Brazil and Argentina while a risk analysis is being performed. The whole-grains provision would stymie school lunch reforms. The study on the risk of foot-and-mouth disease could delay for years U.S. access to South American beef.
The Senate has not debated any of the annual appropriations bills that fund federal departments. There is speculation that lawmakers will assemble a single catch-all funding bill or pass a so-called continuing resolution that carries forward current funding levels. The administration letter was the latest element in tension over the budget.