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August 10, 2012
The future of federal nutrition and agriculture programs remained in limbo last week as Congress departed for its August recess. The House passed a drought disaster relief bill, but decided to delay further debate on the 2012 Farm Bill. The disaster relief bill would be paid for with cuts in funding for conservation programs.
On August 2, the House approved H.R. 6233, the Agricultural Disaster Assistance Act of 2012 , by a vote of 223-197. See the press release from the House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R-OK) here and a statement by the ranking member Colin Peterson (D-MN) here .
As reported previously in SBFF , the bill would offset the emergency spending by cutting conservation programs. The bill would cut funding for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) by $639 million, of which $383 million would offset the emergency aid and the balance would be used to reduce the deficit.
A coalition of agriculture, conservation, and environmental groups sent a letter to the Hill opposing the cuts to conservation programs.
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