Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at the Full Committee Markup of the 2025 Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA Funding Bill

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Committee's markup of the fiscal year 2025 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies funding bill:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman for yielding, and my thanks go to Chairman Harris, Ranking Member Bishop, and to the majority and minority subcommittee staff for all of your hard work, especially Martha Foley, Tyler Coe, and Alex Swann.

After the majority’s failure last year to pass their Agriculture-Rural Development-FDA bill on the Floor of the House of Representatives, I hoped that we would markup a bipartisan bill for Fiscal Year 2025 that responsibly and adequately funds the bill’s programs, and which discards divisive and harmful riders out of the gate.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. The majority is once again dragging us down a path to chaos, with bills that do not adhere to the law, and cannot become law, leading us to squander another summer rather than completing our work and passing appropriations bills on time with bipartisan and bicameral support.

This bill increases costs on workers and families in rural America for basic necessities like water, energy, and housing. This bill puts food assistance at risk for the most vulnerable Americans and people around the world, and this bill jeopardizes pediatric and community health across the country.

A host of cuts in this bill promise to raise the cost of living for rural Americans. Cuts to clean water and waste disposal grants threaten access to clean and reliable water for rural households and businesses.

Shortchanging the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) by 90 percent, and a pittance for the Rural Energy Savings Program will make it harder for small businesses and agricultural producers to keep up with soaring energy costs.

And cuts to direct loans that help rural Americans buy homes, and the elimination of grants for farm labor housing, will make it even more expensive for people in rural America to keep a roof over their head.

While rural Americans are contending with rising food costs and an elevated cost of living, increasing energy and housing prices would be disastrous for their household’s bottom line.

The majority has told us that they are looking across the federal government for where they can responsibly reduce spending.

For this bill, the majority is applying their supposed X-acto knife approach by taking food from the mouths of hungry and vulnerable people, here in America and around the world, at a time when conflict on nearly every continent and climate change are drastically increasing global hunger.

This bill levies paternalistic restrictions on Americans in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps, by including the extreme “SNAP Choice” pilot program.

SNAP “Choice” is a misnomer, as this program eliminates choices for those on food stamps with restrictions on the types of food that can be purchased – which would effectively reduce benefits, as the eligible foods are often more expensive.

Furthermore, the majority proposes cutting the Food for Peace program by $688 million below last year, which would be the lowest level since 2002.

At a time of heightened conflict, humanitarian catastrophe and escalating risk of famine around the world, to deny basic nutrition assistance is to say that, while we send American-made arms and munitions around the world – we have nothing left for hungry children and families left reeling from war and destruction and disorder in their communities.

I worry what it conveys about America’s values if bombs are falling while food support and other aid for civilians dries up. I worry what the innocent families and children caught in the crossfire in those regions will most remember America for.

Ensuring people do not go hungry – in our country, and around the world – is not a problem of growing enough food. We grow enough food. Hunger is a political problem – one that we share the rare and awesome power in this committee to meaningfully address. But this bill says that hunger is not our problem. And that should bring supporters of this bill great shame.

As if the cuts in this bill were not bad enough, the majority continues to load up appropriations bills with harmful policy riders that divide Americans and divide Congress.

One rider is particularly barbaric – a provision in this bill would prevent FDA from stopping the use of an inhumane electrical shock device on young people at risk of hurting themselves or others, despite the well-documented dangers and cruelty of this practice.

Additionally, the bill prohibits the FDA from finalizing rules on dangerous tobacco and nicotine products, taking the side of Big Tobacco over the health of our children and our communities, and reversing the decline in tobacco use, one of the greatest public health successes in history.

The bill favors the interests of major meat industry over those of individual producers and small businesses. And once again, we have the usual list of culture war riders, which have no place in this bill and that we will oppose.

In short, this bill demonstrates the majority’s misguided priorities. Shortchanging assistance for hungry women and children, raising costs for rural Americans, and jeopardizing public health is not a responsible fiscal path, and so I cannot support this bill.

I urge the majority to abandon this strategy and join Democrats at the table so we can work together on bipartisan funding bills that support the American people’s needs. Thank you, I yield back.

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