House Appropriations Committee Rejects Most Ag Amendments to Supplemental Bill

March 10, 2000

After a number of agriculture amendments to the Supplemental Appropriations Bill were denied, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $9 billion mid-year spending bill on a 33-13 vote early Thursday evening. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) was forced to withdraw an amendment that would have provided $150 million to growers of specialty crops, including fruits, vegetables and peanuts for crop disaster losses as well as market losses. Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Joe Skeen (R-NM) strenuously objected to this amendment and other agriculture-related amendments.

An amendment on peanuts offered by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), on behalf of Rep. Allen Boyd (D-FL), Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), and Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA) was withdrawn at the urging of chairman Skeen. The subcommittee chairman agreed to work with the sponsors of the amendment in return for withdrawing the amendment that would have allowed USDA to borrow from the Commodity Credit Corporation to pay for program loan losses from the 1999 crop of peanuts. The amendment would have used marketing assessments on peanut growers in future years as collateral to avoid implementing new assessments against growers this coming fall.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) offered an amendment to provide another $21 million in disaster assistance to 1300 lobstermen in Connecticut and New York, but she ultimately withdrew the amendment. It was pointed out that up to $6.6 million was available in the budget for compensating lobstermen for their losses.

The full committee agreed to a $1,021,000 amendment for rural utilities in Hawaii, offered by Rep. Kingston.

The $9 billion supplemental spending bill is about $3.5 billion above the president's request. The bill provided about $2.2 billion for emergency disaster relief, which is nearly double what the president had requested. During yesterday's markup, the committee added about $30 million to the bill, with most of the money earmarked for victims of last year's hurricanes.