Congress nears completion of agriculture spending bill for FY 2010.

There are signs that House and Senate conferees soon will be named to a conference that will work out differences between the two versions of a routine spending bill that will fund USDA and related agencies during fiscal 2010. Both chambers approved the legislation before the summer recess and negotiators have been working on the details ever since.

The 2010 fiscal year begins Oct. 1, and it appears unlikely that Congress will act on the legislation by then. As a result, USDA will be operating under a continuing resolution, a procedure under which departments of government can continue to function with funding provided at current levels until a new appropriations measure is approved by Congress and signed by the president.

The Obama administration has let lawmakers know about its concern regarding language in the House bill that would continue to restrict imports of poultry products from China. The House and Senate bills differ over the issue of permitting poultry products to be imported into the United States from China.

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service published a final rule in April 2006 that would allow certain poultry products processed in China to be imported into the United States. However, USDA appropriation measures in recent years have prohibited FSIS from using funds to implement the rule. The House-passed spending bill would continue this prohibition.

The Senate version would permit such imports but only under specified preconditions. These conditions include a formal commitment in advance by the secretary of Agriculture to conduct audits of Chinese inspection systems, on-site reviews of slaughter and processing facilities, laboratories, and other controls operations before any Chinese facilities can be certified to export "fully cooked poultry products" to the United States.

USDA also must commit in advance "to implement a significantly increased level of port of entry inspection" and "to conduct information sharing" with other countries that permit Chinese poultry products regarding their audits and inspections of Chinese facilities.

Many food safety advocates support the House version banning the poultry rule, arguing that China--the third leading exporter of food and agricultural products to the United States--lacks effective food safety protections, and that the 2006 rule was rushed into approval without an adequate safety evaluation.

Opponents of the ban, particularly those in the U.S. animal industries, argue that it undermines U.S. trade commitments, and already is leading to trade retaliation by the Chinese.

Another important difference between the House and Senate bills for conferees to resolve is $350 million of disaster assistance for dairy price support in the Senate bill, designated as emergency funding. None of this money is in the House bill. The Senate bill's approach also differs from past disaster assistance provisions, which either provided funds to USDA or instructed payments to come from the Commodity Credit Corporation, rather than increasing Farm Service Agency salaries and expenses as in the Senate-passed bill.

The text of the amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) simply increases FSA salaries and expenses without stating a purpose, but floor statements and press releases by Sanders indicate that the purpose is to increase dairy price support levels. The amendment was one of the more controversial Senate floor amendments since it was designated emergency funding, meaning that it was not required to be offset by cuts elsewhere in the bill.

Another difference between the House--and Senate-passed bills is funding for a national animal identification system. Since FY 2004, approximately $142 million has been appropriated for NAIS, including $14.5 million in FY 2009. The administration proposed slightly increasing the funding for NAIS to $14.6 million in FY 2010. However, the House-passed bill would eliminate all funding for the animal ID program., and the Senate would provide only half the requested amount.

In its report, the House Agriculture Committee stated that until USDA provides specific details on implementing "an improved animal identification system, continued investments into the current NAIS are unwarranted."

At the end of FY 2008, 485,539 premises (or about 35 percent) were registered under NAIS, out of an estimated 1.4 million U.S. animal and poultry operations. USDA has said that much higher levels of participation are needed to successfully implement NAIS.