Congress starts work today on the Agriculture Department’s 2013 budget. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan are set to testify before the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee this morning. The White House budget that was released Monday gives the subcommittee a number of ideas for trimming USDA, including some whacks at mandatory spending levels set for conservation programs in the 2008 farm bill. Those proposals are giving heartburn to farm bill writers such as Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. He says the House Appropriations already has been cutting farm bill spending on its own and he doesn’t want the White House suggesting additional reductions.
Look for Subcommittee Chairman Jack Kingston, R-Ga., to raise questions about the growth of nutrition programs and other initiatives. But he has expressed support for Vilsack’s plan to consolidate the Farm Service Agency’s field offices and likely will ask for more information on that, according to his staff. Another issue that could come up is a proposal to end USDA’s Microbiological Data Program, which screens high-risk produce for deadly bacteria. The loss of the program would leave public health officials without a critical tool to investigate foodborne illness outbreaks, according to The Associated Press.
USDA’s 2013 budget summary is here. (PDF)
Refiners Want to Be Off the Hook Regarding Mandate. The oil industry is asking (PDF) the Obama administration to retroactively toss out last year’s mandate for them to use cellulosic biofuels. The reason: None of the next-generation fuel was commercially available in 2011. Refiners have until the end of the month to show that they complied with the mandate, which was 6.6 million gallons. To do so, the oil companies need their quota of Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs. The refiners’ only option, they say, is to buy the credits from the Environmental Protection Agency at a cost of $1.13 a gallon, or $7.5 million.
Not so fast, says a trade group representing companies that are trying to develop the biofuels from wood waste, grasses and other non-food feedstocks. Waiving the mandate, even retroactively, would set a “dangerous precedent that would threaten the policy and market stability” that the companies need, the Biotechnology Industry Organization says in a letter (PDF) to the agency. EPA said in an email statement that it is deciding what to do with the request.
EPA has already slashed the cellulosic biofuel mandates for 2011 and 2012 far below what Congress intended in the 2007 energy law, which set targets of 250 million gallons for last year and 500 million gallons in 2012. The oil industry petition is here (PDF).
White House Making Good on Food Security Pledge. If Congress cooperates, the Obama administration will be close to making good on its promise at the 2009 L’Aquila summit to put $3.5 billion toward boosting food production in poor countries. The White House’s fiscal 2013 budget includes $1.13 billion for its Feed the Future initiative. Combined with what Congress appropriated for fiscal 2012 and 2011, that would push total spending for the program to $3.2 billion, according to the ONE Campaign, which tracks the spending. “We think they’ve by and large filled their pledge that they made at L’Aquila,” says Tom Hart, ONE’s director of U.S. government relations. “There’s a tremendous amount of work left to do in terms of implementing these programs on the ground.”
The House sought to cut the spending last year along with making deep cuts across the government, but a bipartisan effort in the Senate wound up assuring the program would get $1.1 billion for fiscal 2012. There is still the question of how well the other industrialized countries are paying toward their share of the $22 billion total pledge that was made at L’Aquila in the wake of the 2008 food crisis. No one seems really sure because of the lack of transparency. The Obama administration is looking to extend the global food security commitment at the G8 summit coming up in Chicago, Hart said.
In a blog post, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah says Feed the Future “will help countries develop their own agricultural economies and grow their way out of hunger and poverty, rather than relying on humanitarian food aid that costs us seven times as much to deliver.”
