Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1383 - Agriculture Productivity Act

(House Rules)
(Rep. Weaver (D) Oregon and 40 others)

The Administration opposes enactment of H.R. 1383, because (1) the purposes of the bill are being accomplished by research currently under way in the Department of Agriculture; (2) the bill's restrictions on how agricultural research is to be conducted would hamper the conduct of such research by specifying that a certain number of projects be undertaken and that each project be of a specific duration, thus making research more expensive and less useful; and (3) the bill's open-ended appropriation authorization could result in a program costing roughly twice as much over the next five years as the $7.2 million cost estimated by the House Agriculture Committee, which is considerably higher than the amount needed to accomplish the purposes of the bill under existing law.