The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved a fiscal 2011 spending bill that provides nearly $23 billion in discretionary spending for USDA and the Food and Drug Administration, a figure that is slightly lower than the House version. The prospects of the bill coming to the floor as stand-alone legislation, however, appear dim. Democrats, who have yet to approve a budget resolution that guides the appropriations process, are expected to lump most nondefense bills into a year-end omnibus spending package.
In the area of mandatory spending, the largest portion of USDA's appropriation would go to the supplemental nutrition assistance program (food stamps), which received $68.209 billion in overall spending. The House bill includes a similar funding level.
The total appropriation for USDA, including both discretionary and mandatory spending, would be $109.1 billion for FY11, slightly above the president's request and $11.1 billion above the $97.9 billion enacted for fiscal 2010. Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) said he'd made difficult decisions in trying to balance demands for discretionary and mandatory spending, and that cutting some spending for some conservation programs was necessary.
Chief among those cuts was a $270 million hit taken by the environmental quality incentives program. Another $230 million was cut from other USDA conservation programs, including the wetlands reserve program, farm and ranchland protection program, and grassland reserve program.
