Glickman Calls for `Sufficient’ Funding

September 26, 2000

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman has called on the Senate-House agricultural appropriations conference to provide "adequate resources" to USDA in the final appropriations measure. USDA has downsized by almost 20% over the past five years, and "we simply cannot deliver programs without adequate resources," he told Rep. Joe Skeen (R-NM), chairman of the agricultural appropriations subcommittee.

Glickman also called on the conference panel to "assure that adequate resources are available" for disaster relief from drought, wildfires and "a number of other circumstances throughout the nation." He said he was "very concerned" neither the Senate or House appropriations bill adequately funded food safety.

Neither do the bills provide adequate funding to carry out the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act approved last year, he added. The House bill provides $3 million against a $5.9 million request by the administration.

The administration also wants "new support" from Congress "for essential actions in several areas to strengthen science-based regulation and consumer access to information" about biotechnology. The bills also fall short of adequate funding for agriculture and nutrition research, Glickman said.

"I simply will not be able to recommend that the President sign a bill which does not deal adequately with these issues," he said.