Rules Committee Adopts Open Rule for HR 2410

This evening the House Rules Committee adopted H. Res 274 that includes the rule for the consideration of HR 2410, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014. This will be the standard open rule that the House Republican Leadership has used for the consideration for appropriations bills in the 112^th and 113^th Congress.

The House will act as a Committee of the Whole House to consider HR 2410. The Clerk will read the bill and as the appropriate sections of the bill are reached, members will rise to offer amendments to the bill. When two or more members rise to offer amendments to the same section, the Chair (appointed by the Speaker) will give priority recognition to the amendment that was previously published in the Congressional Record (None have been offered yet).

Once again I expect that there will be at least one chemical security amendment addressing the involvement of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) in chemical security and chemical safety efforts. Considering that I have been hearing some rumors that ISCD will try to address the current temporary Top Screen exemption given to agricultural producers, I also expect that there may be attempts to limit the ability of ISCD to collect Top Screen data from producers.

The Rules Committee web page indicates that the House Leadership has not yet set a date for the debate of HR 2410. The other two bills considered in this hearing (HR 1613 and HR 2231) will be on the House floor for the remainder of the week. Next week will be the Fourth of July recess, so this bill probably won’t be debated until the week of July 8^th. One would like to think that the House leadership will use that time to make sure that they have the votes for the final passage of this bill.