Spokesperson: Thompson doesn’t intend to get budget savings from CCC

A spokesperson for House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., said in an email late Tuesday that Thompson did not mean to say that he intended to accrue savings from the Commodity Credit Corporation to use for other farm bill programs.

Agri-Pulse reported that Thompson did plan to use savings from the CCC, and The Hagstrom Report used that statement when asking the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union about that idea. Neither the committee leaders nor the farm group leaders were enthusiastic about it.

“While staff were not present for the conversation with the chairman and Agri-Pulse, based on our previous conversations with the chairman, we believe there was a miscommunication,” the spokesperson said. “There are two separate issues here — the desire for more strings attached to the secretary’s ability to administer CCC funds and additional dollars for the farm bill. The chairman has publicly expressed that previously appropriated but unspent funds (like the IRA) will be examined, but there is no intention to accrue savings nor pull funds directly from the CCC itself.”