Press Releases

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree scored some significant wins for sustainable agriculture policy in a spending bill that won preliminary approval in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture yesterday. The bill, which funds the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, contains funding levels and other provisions that Pingree had pushed for.  She is a member of the Appropriations Committee and sits on the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, which approved the spending bill yesterday.  The bill still has to go to the full Committee and then to a vote of the full House.
 
Some of the provisions that Pingree fought for in the subcommittee include:

• A ban on "Chinese chicken" in school meals and adult food programs.  Since 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed the export of processed poultry products to the United States from China and Pingree has expressed concern that these products could end up in school meals.
• A ban on the regulation of spent grains that brewers and distillers provide to farmers for animal feed.  Pingree has pushed the Food and Drug Administration not to enforce unreasonable food safety standards on the use of this byproduct by farmers. 
• Requirements that federal researchers reform animal research practices within the Agricultural Research Service.  New York Times journalist Michael Moss exposed outrageous conditions and practices at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center in Nebraska.  Pingree has spoken out against the practices and pushed for reform.
• Increased emphasis on research for Classical Seed Breeding, which provides support for the development of non-GMO, regionally-adapted seeds.

As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Pingree has the ability to influence funding levels for important programs.  The bill passed yesterday contains funding for a number of programs Pingree advocated for, including:

• Doubling of funding, to $5 million, for the Food Safety Outreach Program to help farmers comply with regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act.
• Increased funding for research into the effects of overuse of antibiotics in animal feed.
• A $10 million increase in the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides seniors with a basket of groceries once a month.

Although the bill contained funding and programs that Pingree had pushed for, she strongly opposed many of the provisions of the bill, including language politicizing common-sense school lunch nutrition standards, extreme cuts to Farm Bill conservation programs, dangerous riders blocking regulation of e-cigarettes and trans fat, and overall spending levels that are being kept far too low by the sequester. The funding in this bill is 11.4% below what was provided in 2010.