White House threatens to veto House Agriculture spending bill

The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto another House spending bill for 2014, deepening the sense that another fiscal cliff on appropriations and the debt ceiling looms in the fall. 

The Agriculture spending bill, which covers the USDA, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Food and Drug Administration operating budget, is coming before the Rules Committee Tuesday but has not yet been given floor time. 

The Obama administration listed failure to provide $120 million for CFTC to implement the Dodd-Frank financial reform law as a reason for the veto threat. 

“The bill severely undermines key investments in financial oversight in a manner that would cripple Wall Street reform, and impedes implementation of statutorily-mandated financial regulations. It also imposes harmful cuts in rural economic development, renewable energy development, nutrition programs, food safety, agricultural research, and international food aid,” the White House said.

Obama has threatened to veto each of the House bills that have come before Rules this year, including the non-controversial Veterans Affairs bill. 

The House is operating under a budget cap that is $91 billion below what Senate Democrats and Obama want for 2014. For the Agriculture bill, the House is providing $19.5 billion in discretionary funding while the Senate calls for $20.9 billion. 

The White House called on Congress to convene a formal conference to reconcile the House and Senate budgets.

“Prior to consideration of appropriations bills the Congress should complete an appropriate framework for all the appropriations bills that supports our recovery and enables sufficient investments in education, infrastructure, innovation and national security for our economy to compete in the future,” the White House said. 

Delving into specifics, it criticized the House for failing to reform international food aid to allow the government to buy foreign food. It said cuts to aid in the bill could affect 12 million hungry people. 

The administration said funding for meat inspections, the FDA, and the Women, Infants and Children nutrition programs were dangerously low. 

The White House also called on Congress to allow federal workers a 1 percent salary increase, the first since a freeze went into effect in 2010.