House Passes Ag Appropriations Bill
June 10, 2005
June 10, 2005 -- On Wednesday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives completed action on the Fiscal Year 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2744) and passed the measure by a vote 408 to 18.
Chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, Representative Henry Bonilla (R-Texas), that authored the bill, included report language regarding the Livestock Risk Protection (LRP) program for lamb. ?The committee supports a lamb price insurance, risk management pilot for the U.S. sheep industry and understands that a lamb Livestock Risk Protection program would be beneficial for producers. The Committee urges the Risk Management Agency to implement an LRP-Lamb pilot project of sufficient size and pilot length to properly test the viability of lamb price insurance for sheep producers of all size operations and geography.?
The bill now goes to the Senate where the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee is expected to markup its version of the legislation on June 21 with the full committee expected to take it up on June 23.
Country of origin labeling of meat was also discussed. Representative Dennis Rehberg (R-Mont.) did not have enough votes to approve an amendment to keep the mandatory provision as a 2006 implementation date versus the 2007 date listed in the final bill. The American Sheep Industry Association (ASI) supports the 2006 implementation date for lamb labeling.
?In addition to Chairman Bonilla securing increased funding for the national scrapie eradication program and keeping key funds in place for research and predator control, ASI applauds his support of the language on the Lamb-LRP program, which signals the strong support of the industry as well as Congress for the project at the U.S. Department of Agriculture,? stated Peter Orwick, Executive director.
Staff contact: Peter Orwick, ext. 33
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