It’s that time of year again. The heat and humidity is back in Washington, D.C., meaning it is time for the House and Senate to begin hashing out annual spending legislation, also known as appropriations bills. Twenty years have passed since all twelve spending bills were individually passed and signed into law on-time, but Congress is promising this year things will be different.

With the top line level of funding for Fiscal Year 2015 already agreed to, Congress got an early start this year holding hearings and mark-ups on various bills, including the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations bill. While both the House and Senate agriculture bills adhere to the December budget agreement, the House bill is expected to spend $20.88 billion in FY15 while the Senate projects to spend slightly less – $20.575 billion. Over the past three months, House and Senate Appropriations Committees (and their Agriculture Subcommittees) have debated subjects as wide ranging as potatoes and poultry to food safety and food aid.

However, hot topics during oversight hearings failed to translate into debate and amendments to legislative mark-ups over the past few weeks. For instance, earlier this year House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee members, including Representatives Fortenberry (R-NE), Pingree (D-ME), and DeLauro (D-CT), rightfully questioned U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) witnesses about waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal crop insurance program and the exploitation of farm subsidy loopholes allowing non-farmers and city dwellers to reap millions in taxpayer subsidies. But when it came time to offer amendments to the underlying bills, topics consuming a majority of the Committees’ time centered around white potatoes’ inclusion in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program, horse slaughter inspections, school lunch standards, cigars, and labeling of genetically modified salmon. While all may be worthy of Congressional debate, they do little to help Congress rein in spending on the most expensive Washington supports for agriculture—subsidized crop insurance and special interest commodity programs. Thankfully opportunities for future amendments will come up during floor consideration over the remainder of the summer.

Some parochial interests receiving inordinate attention or taxpayer dollars in these bills include:

• Senator Pryor (D-AR), Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, announced that he “secured $63,331,000 in funding to support the National Center for Toxicological Research in Jefferson County,” an increase of $4.333 million over the President’s FY15 budget request. This brings back memories of the earmark era, before a moratorium on the special-interest provisions was enacted in 2011, when committee members would tout their accomplishments of spending more than the President requested on programs that just-so-happened to be in their districts. .
• $600,000 in the Senate bill for USDA to demonstrate the use of technologies for reforested hardwood tree growth in areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina which made landfall in 2005.
• The corn ethanol industry received a shout-out from USDA Secretary Vilsack when he declared at a House hearing, “We will continue to figure out a way to encourage higher blends [of ethanol]” even though the 2014 farm bill prohibited USDA from spending future taxpayer dollars on this mature industry through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). The House bill reduced funding for REAP and two other biofuels and biomass programs TCS has targeted for budget cuts – the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) and the newly named Biorefinery, Renewable Chemical and Biobased Product Manufacturing Assistance Program (formerly the Biorefinery Assistance Program).

You can follow progress on Agriculture and other appropriations bills here:  http://beta.congress.gov/legislation/appropriations/