Ranking Member Bishop Statement at the Full Committee Markup of the 2027 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 2027 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Bill:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning.
Thank you, Ranking Member DeLauro, my counterpart, Dr. Harris, and our respective staffs. Let me thank you all for the hard work and your cooperation. We have had an opportunity to chat a number of times with Chairman Harris. And, while we have not necessarily come to agreement on all things, I think this is a good faith effort.
The Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies bill is of vital importance to farmers and rural communities across our nation. The programs and workers we fund through this bill affect the lives of every single American, every single day.
It is about the food our families eat and the support for our rural communities, our entrepreneurs, and agricultural producers. It is about the safety of our medicine and cutting-edge research needed to ensure that America will continue to produce the highest quality, the safest, and most abundant and affordable food and fiber anywhere in the world.
Today, we are marking up the Fiscal Year 2027 bill, and we must take this opportunity to improve it so that it actually meets the needs of our country’s agricultural producers and our rural neighbors.
This bill does continue 2026 funding levels for all of the rural housing programs, maintains funding for low-income seniors in the Commodity Food Supplemental Program, and it serves our strategic interests around the world by keeping the McGovern-Dole program intact. It also provides flexibility for rural electric programming.
However, all of this is overshadowed by the devastating and unfortunate cuts to USDA programs and staff that will hurt American children and attack our freedom to drink clean water, to eat safe food, and preserve U.S. farms.
The FY27 bill before us today drastically cuts fruit and vegetable benefits for over 5 million hungry women, infants, and children and it reduces funding for emergency food assistance.
It eliminates the Healthy Food Financing Initiative and fails to help school districts with the equipment needed to cook “real food” to meet dietary guidelines. This bill also provides $200 million less in new funds for WIC than the FY26 bill.
That means 95,000 more women, infants, and children go hungry in Dr. Harris’s home state of Maryland.
Chairman Cole, this means 56,000 women, infants, and children are going without fruit and vegetables in Oklahoma.
In Iowa, represented on this committee by Mrs. Hinson, that is another 48,000. Across the Chattahoochee River from me in Alabama, represented on this committee by Mr. Strong, there are 85,000 women, infants, and children losing access to affordable healthy food.
We have several members on this committee from Florida. Yet, if they support this bill today, that means 330,000 of the most vulnerable Floridians are going to go hungry.
In my own state of Georgia – and I am joined on this committee by my colleague, Mr. Clyde – 185,000 women, infants, and children are left asking: how on earth does ending their access to healthy food help make America healthy again?
And that is just a snapshot from a few states. Every state is going to see more women, infants, and children going without the fresh fruit and vegetables that Dr. Harris says he wants to promote. If WIC remains underfunded, as it is today in this bill, we will turn away eligible families for the first time in three decades.
Unfortunately, American taxpayers have spent billions of dollars a day on an unauthorized war – with no end in sight – for nearly two months, and just ONE week of this war in Iran could fully fund WIC for the WHOLE year.
Ag producers and rural America need our help now more than ever.
Yet, this bill cuts staff at the agencies that our farmers and ranchers rely on most – the Farm Service Agency, Rural Development, and NRCS.
When it comes to agricultural production, growers know you have to “make hay while the sun shines” but my constituents – and I would bet most of yours, too – are driving further and taking more time to catch the USDA office on a day when it is open; they face delayed payments, reduced technical assistance, and loss of services from programs as this Administration tells us they can do more with less.
That is just not true.
American farmers need USDA resources now, and this bill turns away from our responsibility for making sure USDA staff is available and ready with the expertise to help them.
This bill also cuts water and wastewater grants nearly in half for the smallest and poorest rural communities – in your and my districts. We still have rural neighbors living with clay pipes and without access to sewer service. This makes no sense!
Clean water and working wastewater systems are a basic human need, not a privilege. Businesses will only set up shop when there is access to clean water. This is a quality-of-life issue and a job creation issue.
My colleagues across the aisle seemed obsessed with the border in November 2024 but will not provide the basic utilities that Texas border residents – American citizens – need.
Colonias often lack running water, have substandard housing, and rely on failing septic tanks. Yet, this bill cuts water and wastewater funding to these neighborhoods as well as neighborhoods in Alaska and Hawai’i residents.
Unfortunately, in this FY27 bill, rural broadband is cut by 20 percent, rural business development is cut by almost 30 percent, and rural energy programs are cut by 50 percent.
I am also disappointed that the majority is once again offering caustic riders that distract this committee from the mission at hand – to invest in our hardworking ag producers, support America’s rural communities, and ensure the timely review and safety of the medicine that families need.
While this bill largely rejects the disastrous cuts and, in some cases, program eliminations that were proposed by the White House, we can and must do better.
Let us make sure that we do not leave our constituents behind, especially as they face higher costs for food, fuel, and everything else, in this Trump economy.
Now is our time to make this bill great again, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the committee, as well as the House and Senate at large, to do so.
With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
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