Senate appropriators on Thursday approved a $21.7 billion annual funding plan for agriculture programs for the coming fiscal year, turning away the Trump administration’s request for deep spending reductions.
The overall spending level in the bipartisan legislation represents a 1 percent increase from the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed it unanimously.
“It’s a compromise, one that I think has tried to address the biggest concerns [of] both sides of [the] aisle,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Subcommittee.
The measure, now poised to move to the Senate floor, would boost funding for agricultural research while rejecting President Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back farm conservation.
