The Agriculture appropriations bill funds the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) except for the Forest Service. It also funds the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and in even-numbered fiscal years the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). (In the House, but not the Senate, appropriations jurisdiction for CFTC rests with the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture.)

Agriculture appropriations include both mandatory and discretionary spending. Discretionary amounts, though, are the primary focus during the bill's development. The largest discretionary spending items are the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); agricultural research; rural development; FDA; foreign food aid and trade; farm assistance loans and salaries; food safety inspection; animal and plant health programs, and technical assistance for conservation programs.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture marked up its FY2020 bill on May 23, 2019, by voice vote. On June 4, 2019, the full Appropriations Committee passed and reported an amended bill (H.R. 3164, H.Rept. 116-107) by a vote of 29-21, including adopting four amendments.

The $24.3 billion discretionary total in the House-reported Agriculture appropriation would be $1 billion more (+4%) than the comparable amount enacted for FY2019 that includes the CFTC (Table 1, Figure 1).

Generally speaking, the House-reported bill did not include most of the reductions proposed by the Trump Administration. For FY2020, the Administration requested $19.2 billion for discretionary-funded accounts within the jurisdiction of Agriculture appropriation, which would be a reduction of $4.1 billion from FY2019 (-18%).

The primary changes from FY2019 that comprise the $1 billion overall increase in the House-reported bill are the following (Table 1):

• Increase Rural Development accounts by $382 million (+13%), including a $144 million increase for the Rural Housing Service (+9%) and a $208 million increase for the Rural Utilities Service (+34%) to support rural water and waste disposal and rural broadband. In addition, the General Provisions title includes a $338 million increase for a rural broadband pilot program.
• Increase foreign agricultural assistance by $377 million (+19%), including increasing Food for Peace humanitarian assistance by $350 million and McGovern-Dole Food for Education by $25 million. In FY2019, Food for Peace had received an increase of $216 million in the General Provisions title. The FY2020 increase is larger and is in the program's base appropriation.
• Increase related agencies appropriations by $232 million, including increasing FDA appropriations by $185 million (+6%) and the CFTC by $47 million (+18%).
• Increase agricultural program appropriations by $228 million, including:
• Increase departmental administration accounts by $313 million (+80%), including funding the Administration's requests for a $271 million increase for construction to renovate the USDA headquarters and a $46 million increase for the chief information officer.
• Increase USDA regulatory programs by $47 million, including increasing the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service by $23 million (+2%) and the Agricultural Marketing Service by $24 million (+15%).
• Decrease agricultural research by a net $137 million (-4%), mostly through smaller appropriations for construction. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) construction would be reduced by $331 million from FY2019, while salaries and expenses would increase for ARS (+$44 million) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (+$143 million).
• Some of these increases are offset by a net reduction of $238 million in budget authority that is accomplished through the General Provisions title. This is mostly a combination of greater rescissions of carryover balances in WIC (-$300 million), the absence of continuing the FY2019 appropriation in the General Provisions for Food for Peace (-$216 million, as mentioned above) and rural water and waste disposal (-$75 million). The General Provisions provide increases in funding for rural broadband (+$338 million, as mentioned above) and other appropriations for miscellaneous programs (+$16 million, net).

In addition to discretionary spending, the House-reported bill also carries mandatory spending—largely determined in separate authorizing laws—that totals $131 billion. This is about $2 billion more than in FY2019 often because of automatic changes from economic conditions and expectations about enrollment in entitlement programs. Crop insurance spending would decrease by $6.4 billion, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending decreases by about $2.4 billion, and child nutrition programs would increase by $0.9 billion. Reimbursement for the Commodity Credit Corporation would increase by $10 billion, mostly due to the cost of the Administration's trade aid assistance in 2018. Changes in mandatory spending from the 2018 farm bill (Agricultural Act of 2018, P.L. 115-334) are incorporated and were already subject to budgetary enforcement. Amounts in the FY2019 supplemental appropriation for disaster assistance (P.L. 116-20) are not included here.

Thus, the overall total of mandatory and discretionary authority in the House-reported bill is about $155 billion, $24.3 billion of which is subject to discretionary spending limits.

Figure 1. Discretionary Agriculture Appropriations, by Title, FY2019-FY2020

Source: CRS.