Order Code RL31466
Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Homeland Security Department:
U.S. Department of Agriculture Issues
Updated December 16, 2002
Jean M. Rawson
Specialist in Agriculture Policy
Resources, Science, and Industry Division
Congressional Research Service ˜
The Library of Congress
Homeland Security Department:
U.S. Department of Agriculture Issues
Summary
On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed into law a bill establishing a
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which officially will come into being
on January 23, 2003. The President originally proposed (in June 2002) that all of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS) – including the Plum Island Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostics
Laboratory – be transferred into the new Department’s Office of Border and
Transportation Security to support its counter-terrorism mission.
APHIS is responsible for protecting U.S. agriculture from foreign pests and
diseases and posts inspectors at about 125 ports of entry around the country. Border
inspection activities account for an estimated 60% of APHIS’s staff and 30% of its
budget. The remaining resources are devoted to a wide range of domestic activities,
e.g., coordinating animal disease and plant pest control and eradication programs in
the states, providing technical trade dispute advice and resolution, and enforcing
animal welfare laws, to name just a few.
The House Agriculture Committee recommended changes to the President’s
proposal (H.Res. 449) that reflected the concerns of a wide spectrum of the U.S.
agriculture community, which feared that transferring all of APHIS out of USDA
would seriously hamper the agency’s considerable domestic, non-border activities.
The House Select Committee on Homeland Security incorporated these changes into
an amended version of the President’s proposal, which it reported out and the full
House passed in July 2002 (H.R. 5005). The amended proposal specified that only
the APHIS border inspection employees would be transferred to DHS, and that the
USDA Secretary would retain considerable authority over their activities and
funding. The bill also included the transfer of the Plum Island lab to DHS. The
Senate homeland security bill, S. 2452, originally would have transferred border
inspection
and quarantine functions, authorities, employees, and assets to the new
department, but not the Plum Island facility. However, the Senate acceded to the
House language on the APHIS provisions before the full Senate passed its version of
H.R. 5005 on November 19.
Section 421 of P.L. 107-296 authorizes the transfer of no more than 3,200
APHIS border inspection personnel to DHS, along with the Plum Island lab. Plant
and animal quarantine functions, as well as all other APHIS program activities, are
to remain in USDA. Some differences of opinion still exist concerning the Plum
Island lab transfer. Supporters maintain that the new department needs the lab’s
foreign animal disease diagnostic capabilities to detect potential bioterrorism, while
opponents argue that the lab’s research on behalf of the U.S. livestock sector may be
hampered by its top-secret designation.
This report covers the background and policy issues related to the Act
establishing the DHS and its implementation and will be updated as necessary.
Contents
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Recent USDA and Congressional Actions Related to APHIS
Mission and Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Border Protection, Homeland Security, and APHIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Interest Group Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
List of Tables
APHIS Program Areas, Staff Years, and FY2001 Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Homeland Security Department:
U.S. Department of Agriculture Issues
Background
As part of its initial proposal for a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), the Bush Administration recommended that all federal agencies
having inspection or security responsibilities at U.S. borders and ports of entry be
unified into the Office of Border and Transportation Security within the new
department. The border security division would be comprised of the U.S. Customs
Service (from the Treasury Department), the Immigration and Naturalization Service
and Border Patrol (from the Justice Department), the U.S. Coast Guard and the
Transportation Security Administration (from the Transportation Department), the
Federal Protective Service (from the General Services Administration), and the
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (from the U.S. Department of
Agriculture). Legislation introduced in both chambers on May 2, 2002, predating the
President’s proposal, would have transferred a somewhat different list of border
security agencies to a new homeland security department, and the Senate measure,
S. 2452, would have transferred only APHIS’s user-fee supported border inspection
activities (Agricultural Quarantine Inspection, or AQI), not the entire agency.
In FY2001 approximately $355.4 million (in appropriations and user fees) and
3,500 staff supported APHIS AQI activities at U.S. borders and ports of entry. This
represents about 30% of the agency’s total budget for that year ($1.168 billion,
including user fees and transfers from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) for
funding of emergency pest and disease management programs), and 60% of the
agency’s staff. The majority of the agency’s funding was used by the other 40% of
the staff to conduct APHIS’s non-border programs. The following table shows the
agency’s staffing and funding for its border inspection activities (under the Pest and
Disease Exclusion program area), and for its responsibilities under four other
program areas.
CRS-2
APHIS Program Areas, Staff Years, and FY2001 Funding
Program Area
Staff Years
FY2001 Funding
Pest and Disease Exclusion
(
In $ million)
Inspection of passengers and cargo at ports,
2,943
48.1 appropriated +
airports, and borders (AQI)
222.7 from user fees
Overseas monitoring of foreign animal
9
4.2
diseases
Border protection through pest control
415
63.3
programs in Mexico & Central America1
Trade regulation/import-export inspection
140
7.8
SPS2 dispute resolution
37
8.9
_____
_____
3,544
355.4
Plant and Animal Health Monitoring
Domestic surveillance, detection and
844
90.4
prevention of domestic and foreign plant
and animal diseases
Emergency management – overseas and
15
5.6
domestic animal disease prevention,
preparedness and response
_____
____
859
96.0
Pest and Disease Management
Cooperative federal-state detection and
389
160.1
control programs for specified harmful pests
and diseases3
Predator and wildlife damage control and
498
51.9
methods development
____
_____
887
212.0
Animal Care
Regulation of certain facilities that handle
147
13.7
research and exhibition animals and pets;
protection of show horses
Scientific and Technical Services
Information technology infrastructure
n/a
3.0
Regulation of releases of genetically
115
11.3
engineered organisms into the environment
Methods development for controlling
79
6.7
problem plants and plant pests
Regulation and licensing of animal drugs
152
11.8
CRS-3
Program Area
Staff Years
FY2001 Funding
Foreign and domestic animal disease
187
19.2
diagnostic testing; and diagnostic assistance
to U.S. livestock and poultry industries at
the Plum Island and Ames laboratories
____
_____
533
51.9
Contingency Funds for response to plant
17
2.9 appropriated +
and animal pest and disease outbreaks
335.0 transferred from
Commodity Credit
Corporation (CCC)
_____
336.0
Source: FY2003 USDA Budget Explanatory Notes.
1 This includes cattle ticks, fruit flies, screwworm, and tropical bont tick.
2 Sanitary and phytosanitary disputes. These involve countries using concerns about plant pests or
animal diseases as cause to bar imports from another country.
3 This includes aquaculture protection, biocontrol, boll weevil, brucellosis, chronic wasting disease,
emerging plant pests, golden nematode, grasshopper, gypsy moth, fire ant, Johne’s disease,
noxious weeds, pink bollworm, plum pox, pseudorabies, scrapie, tuberculosis, and witchweed.
Recent USDA and Congressional Actions Related to APHIS
Mission and Security
By the end of 2001, in response to heightened security concerns after September
11, 2001, APHIS had increased inspection staff at U.S. ports of entry by 153 (toward
a goal of 250 new inspectors) and added 20 veterinarians to imported and domestic
disease surveillance and control programs. In addition, according to budget
documents, the agency hired 46 smuggling interdiction and trade compliance officers
and 10 investigative and enforcement officers in 2001. These officers conduct
investigatory inspections to detect the various ways that prohibited items may be
entering the country, and work with other federal agencies, state departments of
agriculture, and state and local police to provide coordinated enforcement and
prepare certain cases for criminal investigation.
In January 2002, APHIS received an additional $119 million under the
supplemental defense appropriation (P.L. 107-117), of which $105 million is to
enhance pest and disease exclusion (at the borders) and detection and monitoring
(domestically and overseas). The Secretary’s office announced on May 30, 2002,
that $43 million of that money was being released in grants to states, and through
cooperative agreements with states, to implement local emergency preparedness
plans. P.L. 107-117 also provided $14 million for increased security measures at the
APHIS National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa. In addition, through the
Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA’s in-house research agency, which
shares animal disease research facilities with APHIS, the Ames lab received $50
million for construction of a bio-containment facility to secure dangerous pathogens,
and $23 million for security upgrades at the Plum Island Animal Disease Diagnostics
Lab.
CRS-4
The Administration’s FY2003 budget request proposed a $767.1 million
appropriation for APHIS. Included in this was an additional $4.3 million ($3 million
is appropriated for FY2002) for APHIS to further develop and maintain a computer
link with the U.S. Customs Service, with which it shares initial import inspection
responsibilities (Customs does not release APHIS-regulated plant or animal imports
until the agency has cleared them), and with federal food safety agencies. Both the
House and Senate Appropriations Committees’ respective FY2003 funding bills
(H.R. 5263, S. 2801) would provide roughly $749 million for APHIS, an amount
$2.4 million above FY2002, but $26.2 million below the President’s request. Most
of this difference can be attributed to the Administration’s request for a one-time
$26.7 million shift in funds to cover GSA rental costs; the Committees’ proposals do
not include this. They do include an increase in funds for stepped-up border
inspections and for animal health monitoring and surveillance activities. APHIS has
continued to operate on an FY2002 budget level provided by the series of continuing
resolutions that Congress has passed since October 1, 2002; the House and Senate
have stated their intent to pass FY2003 funding bills early in January 2003.
The FY2002 emergency supplemental appropriations act for antiterrorism
activities (P.L. 107-206) appropriated an additional $18 million for the Office of the
Secretary to transfer to APHIS and three other USDA agencies for counter-terrorism
activities, and an additional $33 million for APHIS to use for: (1) cooperative
agreements with states to prevent a number of ‘mad cow’-like diseases ($15 million);
(2) emergency preparedness ($10 million); (3) physical and operational security ($4
million); and (4) equipment needs and smuggling interdiction ($4 million).
However, the Administration declared that this money would become available only
upon an emergency request from the President, which has not been made. However,
an emergency appropriation of $25 million for upgrading the APHIS/ARS animal
disease research lab in Ames, Iowa, is being provided, since this provision is not
contingent upon an emergency request from the President.
The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act
of 2002 (P.L. 107-188, H.R. 3448/S. 1765), which the President signed on June 12,
2002, authorized appropriations of $30 million in FY2002 and such sums as
necessary in future years for: (1) increasing and improving APHIS’s border
inspection capacity; (2) increasing cooperation with state animal and human health
agencies; and (3) fully implementing the computerized, integrated tracking and
record-keeping system. The Act also authorized FY2002 appropriations for further
upgrading of the Plum Island ($100 million) and Ames ($80 million) animal health
research laboratories, and such sums as necessary for that purpose in subsequent
years. Finally, the Act authorized $190 million in FY2002 appropriations, and such
sums as necessary in subsequent years, for APHIS, ARS, and university research on
enhancing U.S. agricultural biosecurity and food safety.1 Providing additional funds
1Although APHIS border inspection is intended to protect U.S. agriculture overall from
incoming foreign plant and animal pests and diseases, it also has a responsibility in
protecting the safety of the Nation’s food supply – e.g., preventing meat imports from
countries where animal diseases of threat to human health, such as mad cow disease, occur.
Within USDA, APHIS and FSIS currently coordinate their food-related biosecurity
preparedness and response activities under the aegis of the Protection of the Food Supply
(continued...)
CRS-5
in the FY2003 USDA appropriations bill for APHIS counter-terrorism activities
under these authorities will be at the discretion of the House and Senate appropriators
when the 108th Congress convenes.
Discussion
Border Protection, Homeland Security, and APHIS. The Bush
Administration stated initially that its intent in consolidating APHIS’s inspection
force with that of other agencies having border protection responsibilities was to
create an unified, expert, interdisciplinary inspection presence along all of the
Nation’s land, air, and sea borders. Supporters of the initial proposal maintained that
although APHIS has an excellent record at keeping out known animal and plant
threats, the agency is not as well prepared to counter terrorists’ attempts to breach
border security or to thwart an internal attack involving harmful pests or diseases of
domestic origin. Thus, supporters said, not only would U.S. border protection benefit
from the presence of APHIS inspectors, but U.S. agriculture also would benefit from
having APHIS’s expertise with plant pests and animal diseases as part of a more
comprehensive inspection and surveillance network.
Opponents of the original proposal argued that, in light of the administrative and
legislative steps that have already been taken to strengthen APHIS programs and
information technology, leaving the agency in place – or perhaps leaving its non-
border functions in place – would best serve both border protection and homeland
security missions. Improvement in both missions arguably could be accomplished
by building upon the current information technology infrastructure to create a
seamless computerized network that would allow consistent tracking of imports and
instant alert capability among the several relevant agencies. APHIS’s role as the first
point of inspection for FSIS- and FDA-regulated food imports, and how that role
might change now that the agency’s border inspection function is no longer part of
the food and agriculture mission of USDA, remains an issue of interest as P.L. 107-
296 begins to be implemented. Some observers have expressed concern that the
security of both agriculture and the food supply could be weakened during the
transition of APHIS personnel, equipment, operating procedures, and information
channels to a new department.
Interest Group Positions. The National Association of State Departments
of Agriculture (NASDA) went on record in opposition to the original DHS proposal
in a letter delivered to the White House and House and Senate Agriculture
Committees on June 7, 2002. NASDA officials voiced concern that agricultural
health protection could get low priority in a department whose mission is anti-
1(...continued)
and Agriculture Production subcouncil of the USDA Homeland Security Council. Although
federal food safety agencies are not included in the President’s reorganization proposal,
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge testified on June 20, 2002, that consolidating these
agencies into a single unit may be proposed later on. For further discussion of this policy
issue, see CRS Issue Brief IB10082,
Meat and Poultry Inspection Issues in the 107th
Congress, or CRS Issue Brief IB10099,
Food Safety and Protection Issues in the 107th
Congress.
CRS-6
terrorism. The June 7 edition of the Webster Agricultural Letter, a Washington-
based policy newsletter, stated, “While most agricultural interests...will support the
idea of improving government’s organization to deter terrorists, they also should
argue that moving or splitting up APHIS would weaken its ability to protect
agriculture from disease and pest threats. Much of what APHIS does has no
‘homeland security’ function anyway....” On June 20, 2002, more than 40 U.S. farm
groups sent a letter to the White House and to Congress expressing specific concerns
about how APHIS’s non-border functions would be handled were they part of a new
department of homeland security. The same day, the Humane Society of the United
States issued a statement saying that although it supported the idea of a consolidated
homeland security department, “We believe...that transferring animal welfare
programs to the Department is an obvious misfit and would relegate important
programs to the margins of a department focused on matters entirely unrelated to the
well-being of animals.”
Priority Concerns. Many farm organizations expressed concern that
APHIS’s mission to protect agriculture could lose priority in a department whose first
mission was security. The President’s initial proposal would have transferred to
DHS the agency’s entire foreign animal disease (FAD) prevention program, which
has relied on research from the Plum Island Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostics
Laboratory to keep the United States free of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease). Instead of
transferring the whole FAD program, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 transfers
only the Plum Island facility into the Science and Technology mission area of the
new Department. The Act stipulates that the Secretaries of DHS and USDA are to
make an agreement under which USDA scientists (of USDA’s Agricultural Research
Service) and APHIS scientists at Plum Island will be able to continue their ongoing
research investigations – e.g. on vaccines against foreign animal diseases – for other
APHIS programs. The Secretary of Agriculture will continue to have jurisdiction
over that research agenda.
Some agricultural scientists and U.S. livestock industry groups oppose the Plum
Island transfer. They fear that the lab’s likely designation as a top-secret facility will
hamper the free flow of information necessary for research progress and slow the
availability of new technologies to the livestock sector. On the other hand, the
science community and other observers have noted that renovation of the lab’s
physical structure and security has been slow, and it could be argued that locating the
lab in an agency whose overall mission is security could greatly enhance progress.
In another priority area, agricultural trade groups were concerned that APHIS
border inspection, which facilitates the movement of $93.5 billion annually in
agricultural imports and exports, would take on a more rigid security function if it
were moved out of USDA, possibly disrupting trade. Trade groups also noted that
APHIS negotiations with trading partners on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS)
concerns are important to the success of USDA’s export development programs.
Under the final Act, USDA/APHIS retains the SPS dispute resolution function. It
remains to be seen whether DHS jurisdiction over APHIS border inspection will have
any effects on the speed of commodity movement at ports-of-entry.
CRS-7
Funding Concerns. Agriculture groups were concerned earlier over which
department would have jurisdiction over funding for the transferred inspection
function and over the availability of Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funds to
support APHIS’s emergency pest management programs. These issues were
addressed in the House-passed H.R. 5005, which specified that USDA was to retain
control over the user fee account and periodically transfer funds to the Department
of Homeland Security to cover only the costs of the border inspection duties incurred
under the DHS mission. The USDA Secretary would retain discretion over the use
of the remaining funds in the account. The Senate incorporated this language into its
version of the bill before passage, and no further changes were made before
enactment. During the annual appropriations process, Congress provides funds for
APHIS to hire additional inspectors, train more dogs for cargo inspection (the
“beagle brigade”), and purchase more X-ray machines. The authorization for funds
to be appropriated for these purposes is contained in the Animal Health Protection
Act of 2002 (subtitle E of title X of P.L. 107-171; 7 U.S.C. 8301 et seq.), and these
activities will remain under USDA jurisdiction.
Since P.L. 107-296 provides for all of APHIS’s non-border activities to remain
in USDA, the question of the availability of CCC funds for emergency domestic
activities is no longer an issue. Since 1948, the Secretary has had the authority (now
extended under 7 U.S.C. 7772 and Section 10417 of the 2002 farm act, P.L. 107-171)
to make transfers to APHIS of CCC funds for emergency response to plant and
animal health threats (such as Karnal bunt of wheat, citrus canker, and avian
influenza). Use of this authority has increased significantly in recent years. CCC
transfers averaged $22 million annually in the period from 1990 to 1998, and
addressed one or two emergencies per year. In FY2001, the Secretary transferred
$335 million to respond to more than a dozen emergencies.