Cord Byrd: “we have before the Senate the fiscal year 1997 appropriations bill for Agriculture, Rural Development, the Food and Drug…”

“we have before the Senate the fiscal year 1997 appropriations bill for Agriculture, Rural Development, the Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies. This bill, as reported by the Senate Committee on Appropriations provides $54,276,792,000 in total obligational authority for the coming fiscal year. This amount is $1,224,755,000 more than provided in the House bill, but it is nevertheless $4,040,522,000 below the President's request and nearly $10 billion below the amount provided for fiscal year 1996. This bill provides funding necessary to support a wide variety of programs that are very important to all Americans. These programs include food and nutrition programs, environmental protection and conservation, rural development, export promotion, assurance that we have a safe food and drug supply, and research and education programs necessary for the production of agricultural products and equally important to consumers of those products. In fact this bill provides funding for all programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, except the Forest Service, and also includes funding for the Food and Drug Administration and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. While West Virginia may not reach the levels of traditional farm commodity production of some states in the Midwest or other regions of the country, this bill is very important to my state.”