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McCollum Successfully Secures $7 Million for New Plant Disease Research Lab in St. Paul

December 23, 2022

FY 2023 Omnibus Agreement Funds All MN-04 Community Projects

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (MN-04) released the following statement today after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the Fiscal Year 2023 conference agreement, paving the way for President Biden to sign it into law. The agreement includes funding for all 15 of Rep. McCollum's requested Community Projects that will directly benefit the Fourth District.

Within the Agriculture-Rural Development-Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies portion of the agreement, McCollum secured $7 million for a Community Project Funding (CPF) request which will benefit Minnesota's Fourth Congressional District and U.S. agriculture at large:

  • Project: USDA Agricultural Research Service Cereal Disease Lab located on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota ($7,000,000)
    This initial funding will help lay the groundwork for the planning and development of a new next generation laboratory facility that will make gains in addressing new and emerging pathogenic strains in important agricultural crops in order to mitigate risks to U.S. agriculture and our global food supply.

"The Agricultural Research Service's Cereal Disease Lab will be critical for Minnesota agriculture and our global food supply," Rep. McCollum said. "I'm proud to secure funding to facilitate this important research to ensure sustainable and healthy crops."

Background:

The FY 23 Agricultural, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations bill totals provides funding of $25.5 billion – a critical increase of $737 million, 3 percent– above 2022. In total, the bill includes $242 billion for both discretionary programs funded on an annual basis and mandatory programs such as SNAP.

As a member of the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. McCollum is proud that the bill:

  • Tackles hunger and nutrition insecurity by providing increased access to fruits and vegetables to 6.2 million people through WIC and ensuring 43.5 million people in SNAP-eligible families get the benefits they need. The bill also invests in the health of America's kids through Child Nutrition programs, like school meals, which are now the healthiest source of food consumed in the United States.
  • Rebuilds our public health infrastructure and strengthens the safety of our baby formula market with increased funding to address maternal and infant nutrition, including resources for the ‘Closer to Zero' initiative to reduce exposure to toxic elements in babies' and young children's food, emerging food-related chemical and toxicological issues, drug safety oversight, as well as providing additional resources for in-person inspections of one of the largest foreign drug manufacturing countries, and drug and device supply chain monitoring and surveillance. The bill also invests in our public health infrastructure by modernizing FDA's data infrastructure to better ensure the safety and security of the food and medical supply chain.
    • Includes McCollum language (p.99) directing funding to continue educating the public on the dangers of harmful skin-lightening products, which disproportionately impact women of color
  • Invests over $455 million for the expansion of broadband service to provide economic development opportunities and improved education and healthcare services. This includes $348 million for the ReConnect program. These significant investments in broadband reflect a commitment to enabling Americans in rural communities to access digital tools necessary to improve health, educational, and economic outcomes.
  • Provides important investments to ensure equitable participation in USDA programs. In total, the bill provides more funding than the request to advance racial justice, including increases for extension, research, and capacity grants at our 1890 land grants, 1994 land grants, and Hispanic serving institutions to help strengthen the pipeline for the future of agriculture. It also provides funding to improve outreach and program access to historically underserved communities and provides a healthy increase for USDA's Office of Civil Rights above the request
  • Includes McCollum language (p.26) supporting food security and climate adaptation, encouraging NIFA to seek out and support suitable non-profit ag-biotech research partners to engage in transgenic plant research that can deliver durable resistance to plant diseases, pests, and weeds, thus advancing USDA goals for food security and climate adaptation, and benefitting both producers and consumers of major crops.
  • Includes McCollum request (p.11) increasing the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program funding by $500,000 from FY22.

Read Chair McCollum's full statement on final passage of the omnibus here.

The text of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 is available here. A list of bill highlights is here. A full summary of the appropriations provisions in the bill is here. In keeping with the Appropriations Committee's commitment to transparency, information on Rep. McCollum's Community Project Funding requests is available here.

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