Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request for the Department of Agriculture Hearing

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee's hearing on the fiscal year 2024 budget request for the Department of Agriculture:

Thank you, Chairman Harris and Ranking Member Bishop, for holding this important hearing. And welcome to our witness, Secretary Vilsack. Thank you for being here and for your commitment and service to our country as Secretary of the Department of Agriculture.

The agencies and programs at U.S.D.A. directly impact families in every community across the country – from the farmers who grow the food we eat, to rural water and waste infrastructure, to school nutrition and family nutrition assistance. U.S.D.A. is critical to keeping our farms, food, and families safe and healthy.

We thank you for your commitment to each of these areas, and all that is encompassed in the Department of Agriculture.

When a once-in-a-century pandemic exposed fragile supply chains across multiple industries, Mr. Secretary, you got to work to ensure the most critical pieces of America’s food and agricultural infrastructure were resilient against a rapidly changing virus and economy, as part of the Build Back Better Initiative and with resources from the American Rescue Plan.

Your actions delivered fairer prices for farmers, buttressing the support for those who grow, those who harvest, and deliver America’s food, and bolstering the rural American economy.

Housing, farmland, food safety and combatting hunger – your department has an extraordinarily important portfolio, and we thank you for your dedication to these areas going back to your many years of service including in the President Obama’s Administration.

Though it took more time than we would have liked, I want to say I am truly pleased with where we ended up with this subcommittee’s fiscal year 2024 law.

We fully funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and increased funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) by over $1 billion, ensuring no family is put on a waitlist, and that we are able to meet the nutritional needs of the most vulnerable in our society. We also reversed Republican efforts to drastically cut fruit and vegetable benefits currently provided through WIC.

We protected women’s access to mifepristone and rejected Republicans’ attempts to obstruct reproductive care, and we rejected discriminatory policy riders and cuts that would have increased costs on farmers.

We protected the Department’s ability to assist farmers in times of crisis, we protected small producers against undue influence from large meat and poultry companies, and we helped producers who are behind on Farm Service Agency loans.

I am also pleased that this law increases oversight of agricultural land purchases within the United States by hostile foreign countries and entities, protecting our national security.

I share Ranking Member Bishop’s frustrations over the 2024 appropriations process – with Democrats left out of the original drafting of this Committee’s bill, which as you know, failed to pass on the Floor of the House of Representatives.

I hope my colleagues in the majority remember that this bill, like all of our committee’s bills, will need to have the support of Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate to move forward and become law.

Looking to 2025, I appreciate the robust and responsible approach the Administration took in ensuring that U.S.D.A. can continue to meet the needs of America’s farmers and families.

The 2025 budget request builds on this success by requesting $24.5 billion for USDA, an increase of $2.3 billion or 11 percent over the 2024 enacted level.

This would bolster rural development programs that create jobs and opportunities in rural communities, ensure domestic and foreign food aid programs are properly funded, expand conservation assistance to historically underserved farmers and ranchers, and continue protecting public health and preventing foodborne illnesses.

I am also intrigued by the new proposal to backstop WIC funding, so we do not face a nutrition assistance cliffhanger like we just went through, and I plan to inquire more about how the Administration developed this proposal later in this hearing.

This budget would tackle hunger at home and abroad, fight climate change and promote conservation, and would support the staff at the Department of Agriculture who are dedicated to safeguarding American food safety, and ending hunger.

Thank you again for your dedication and public service, and for testifying before the subcommittee today.

With that, I thank Chairman Harris and Ranking Member Bishop, and I yield back.

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