Ranking Member Bishop Statement at the Full Committee Markup of the 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Bill

WASHINGTON — Congressman Sanford Bishop (D-GA-02), Ranking Member of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the full committee markup of the 2026 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Bill:

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman Harris.

Everyone here has heard me say this before and I will say it again, I am always working to ensure that America produces the highest quality, the safest, most abundant, and most affordable food, fiber, and medicine.

Unfortunately, this bill is still not up to the task.

While this administration continues to tear down local food purchasing programs that help farmers and families, this bill does nothing to fix the lose-lose reality the administration has delt to our communities.

In just the past couple of months, schools in my district and across the state of Georgia have seen the rug pulled out from under them. They are scrambling to figure out how they are going to feed students in the school lunch program after the cancelation of local farm to school purchase programs that meant so much to our cafeterias and the farmers who provided the food.

The same with food banks whose pantry shelves thinned out, cutting to the bone their ability to help families – women, children, the elderly, our veterans – those who face the highest risk of hunger. And, the farmers, ranchers and other ag producers who had found new, local customers, who were not only able to do good business but also do good for their neighbors and community, they are seeing those customers disappear.

While our country continues to grow, our support for women, infants, and children continues to shrink. This bill follows the Administration’s lead, and it cuts $100 million in WIC funds, hurting our most vulnerable as the cost of food continues to rise.

We already know there is a digital divide when it comes to rural communities and access to affordable broadband internet. Yet this bill not only fails to increase the investments in rural broadband necessary to close the gap but also slashes grants for distance learning, telemedicine, and other broadband projects in rural communities.

The cost of housing continues to rise across the country, and rural communities are not exempt, yet this bill cuts $1.8 billion in rural housing programs, hurting rural America. Affordable housing is fundamental to every American’s quality of life. It is a big part of the American Dream, but this bill makes it harder for Americans to achieve the dream!

Talking about being able to provide for and afford basic needs, this bill cuts $44 million in grants for water and waste projects. These projects often have large capital costs, and small towns in rural America do not have the ratepayer base to cover those costs. Without these federal grants they are put between a rock and a hard place to pay for the project by either slapping residents with huge utility bills or cutting back on other public services.

It also decimates the resources available to our rural towns and counties to make community facility improvements. What does that mean for folks watching us here, at home? That means small towns across this country will be harder pressed to provide essential services – like law enforcement, firefighting and emergency services, or other municipal services.

Let me tell you what grants and loans like this can mean for a community like mine. The ones that I represent in rural Georgia.

Back in 2021, two members of the Decatur County sheriff’s office were killed in the line of duty. They had joined a car chase that crossed county lines from Seminole County just next door. Because their radios were older and could not communicate with one another, the Decatur County officers were unaware of the danger they were facing.

I worked through the appropriations process to ensure so that the regional commission that covers those – and 12 additional rural counties – could help their law enforcement departments purchase modern, interoperable P25 radio systems. If the cost of those systems were on the shoulders of those towns and counties alone, then they would be hard pressed to be able to afford it.

These are the types of important projects that may never see the light of day. If we fail to properly fund Community Facilities grants and loans, then Congress and the federal government are no longer reliable partners to our rural communities.

This bill can do better, and I will be offering an amendment to restore funding for rural housing as well as community facilities direct loan fundings so that we are not leaving our rural communities – that have limited budgets – in the tough position to choose between making repairs to their police station, purchasing and maintaining patrol cars or equipment for their firefighters, or having to maintain their water systems or keep up with waste disposal.

I also urge my colleagues to remember that federal programs cannot deliver for the American people without sufficient and experienced workers.

I continue to hear from my constituents about staffing shortages – whether it is at the Farm Service Agency or the Natural Resources Conservation Service or at the Rural Development Agency – and I know they are not alone.

This bill makes a 9 percent, $109 million cut to FSA, a $46 million, 13 percent cut to Rural Development staffing at a time when farmers are already showing up to county offices that are understaffed or totally empty, a result of the mass exodus of the experienced personnel who help farmers with everything from disaster relief, to home loans, to grants, to improving their farm operations.

This bill slashes funding for NRCS Conservation Operations by 5 percent. This is a program that helps America’s farmers, ranchers, and other private landowners conserve and protect their land. It completely eliminates the Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Program which undermines our ability to grow more food close to the people who consume it across America.

We continue to see a retreat from America’s leadership on the world stage and part of that is the demolition of the Food for Peace program, cutting funding by $788 million which would make it the lowest funding level for the program since 2002. Meanwhile, the administration continues to illegally dismantle USAID and keep food from reaching those in need around the world. I want to remind my colleagues that this eliminates an important market for America’s agriculture producers, and it undermines a powerful part of our diplomatic and economic arsenal.

The bill also cuts the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)’s by $30 million, which will undermine their ability to go after cybercriminals and secure the global derivative markets on which American producers rely.

Americans are already concerned about the role that sound-science will play in our public health and safety policy. We need to embrace transparency, and the FDA should be able to effectively and quickly share information. It needs the resources to do this, but the bill before us today cuts over $320 million from the FDA.

Finally, I am extremely concerned about language in the report that directs states to share personally identifiable information of those who use SNAP with USDA. We cannot compromise people’s privacy simply because they participate in this program.

As we have considered this bill, we have been told we are only facing a cut of about 4 percent, but that is $1.2 billion in cuts with the biggest chunks being taken out of the FDA, food programs, and Rural Development. These programs provide important services for our rural communities, the nation, and the world. And we need to make sure that these programs grow with our country and have enough resources for the people and communities that they are meant to support.

This bill is making it more costly for folks in rural America by cutting much needed investments in housing, facilities, and utilities programs that help families, and small businesses, and rural communities save money and thrive. It retreats from nutrition programs that help the most vulnerable afford healthy food and, at the same time, engage America’s agriculture producers in our country’s effort to fight hunger.

I am hopeful that we will put aside partisanship to improve this bill and provide adequate resources for all the stakeholders of USDA, rural communities, and our federal administration.

If we cannot produce a bill that works for all the American people, I will not be able to support it.

I urge my colleagues to look at this bill and to make improvements, to put the resources there, so that we can once again be on the cutting-edge in the global marketplace and here at home, and making America able to thrive with the products of our Department of Agriculture and the things that we do for rural America.

With that, I will yield back and unfortunately, I able unable to support this bill in its current form.

I yield back.

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