Toward the end of every fiscal year, lobbyists and lawmakers in Washington do a kabuki dance around the various spending bills – there are 12 – with the former hoping to get programs included for the sectors they represent. With competing interests and a finite amount of dollars, most lobbyists don’t expect more than one or two successes among the dozens of “asks” they make.
But not the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). Not now. After a tough couple of years for pork producers, first dealing with retaliatory foreign tariffs on their product, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and packing plant shutdowns that sent hog prices south, and finally the detection last year of African swine fever just 750 miles away, the pork sector needed a lot more than a couple of programs to ensure producers could remain in business and continue providing pork to consumers worldwide.
Through tireless work that included an extensive and aggressive lobbying campaign, NPPC scored a huge victory with congressional passage in early March of a catch-all spending bill that keeps the government operating through fiscal 2022 and funds a long list of pork industry priorities. Indeed, that $1.5 trillion “omnibus” measure includes $25.1 billion for agricultural programs through Sept. 30.
NPPC’s advocacy efforts – hounding lawmakers about appropriating adequate funds to combat foreign animal diseases (FADs) and championing other priorities – paid off, with Congress giving the pork industry almost everything it requested.
In fact, NPPC helped secure 19 different provisions in the omnibus bill, totaling nearly $6 billion, that will directly benefit pork producers.
Almost every aspect of the pork industry will be affected by the successes, which include an extension of the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act and of a waiver from restrictive federal trucking rules; hundreds of millions of dollars for preparing for, preventing and responding to FADs and for agricultural research; the continuation of USDA’s Agricultural Quarantine Inspection program; and a change in a visa program to address labor shortages at packing plants.
NPPC also was able to stop detrimental riders to the appropriations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, successfully blocking Clean Air Act permitting requirements for livestock and a provision that would have required livestock facilities to report to EPA their greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, it staved off a policy related to climate change that could have negatively affected the pork industry and one that could have prohibited the use of faster harvesting line speeds at packing plants.
Here’s a list of the programs for which NPPC was able to secure additional or new funding and the provisions it got extended or kept out of the fiscal 2022 spending bill:
AGENCY ITEM
USDA AMS Livestock Mandatory Reporting authorization extended to the end of fiscal 2022.
USDA APHIS $46,039,000 increase in top-line funding.
USDA APHIS $25,390,000 for swine health (up from $25,020,000).
USDA APHIS $61,414,000 for veterinary diagnostics (up from $56,979,000).
USDA APHIS $20,282,000 to remain available until expended for zoonotic disease management (up from $19,620,000).
USDA APHIS $42,021,000 to remain available until expended for emergency preparedness and response (up from $41,268,000).
USDA APHIS $24,307,000 to remain available until expended to carry out the science program and transition activities for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (up from $20,252,000).
USDA APHIS Continuance of a provision allowing the transfer of funds in the event of a disease outbreak.
USDA FSIS Provision to prohibit new and eliminate existing line speed waivers in meat and poultry plants was not included.
USDA NIFA $445,000,000 for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative ($10,000,000 increase).
USDA REE $1,000,000 to further build out planning and management structure of AGARDA.
USDA $3,500,000,000 for agricultural research (increase of $217,000,000 from fiscal 2021).
USDA RUS $550,000,000 for expanding broadband access, including $450,000,000 for USDA ReConnect Program.
DOL/DHS Continuance of H-2B Returning Worker provision from fiscal 2021.
DHS CBP $250,000,000 to remain available until Sept. 30, 2023, to offset the loss resulting from the COVID pandemic of quarantine and inspection fees used to fund CBP agricultural inspectors.
DHS CBP CBP shall continue working with USDA to better leverage existing staff to address the agricultural inspection workload, including by authorizing additional work hours or dual certification.
DOT FMCSA Electronic logging device requirements delayed for livestock truckers.
EPA Prohibition on Clean Air Act Title 5 greenhouse gas permits for livestock.
EPA Prohibition on using funds to require reporting of GHG emissions from farms.
Nick Giordano is NPPC vice president and counsel, global government affairs and runs the organization’s Washington, DC, public-policy office.
More from Farm Journal’s PORK:
Prop 12 Countdown: California Food Industry Leaders Fight Back
