Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2026

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, as ranking member of the Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food and Drug Administration Subcommittee, I rise to oppose this bill. Though it does represent, for the most part, solid bipartisan work to provide investments in agriculture and rural America, I am disappointed that the rest of it falls far short of the needs of most Americans.

Healthcare providers and patients are frustrated and frightened by the imminent skyrocketing of healthcare costs caused by the loss of the ACA tax credits and cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and lifesaving biomedical research.

My constituent, Ms. Angela Hoomes, is unable to walk without debilitating pain. She is worried that, without the tax credits, she won't be able to afford health insurance to complete the multiple back surgeries she needs.

For many Georgians, healthcare is a matter of life and death. Our Republican colleagues could have corrected this in the Rules Committee, but they rejected an amendment last night that would have lowered healthcare premium costs. To me, that is unconscionable. So are the administration's actions during the shutdown.

As a Christian, I am outraged that USDA used the shutdown to illegally withhold SNAP from 42 million Americans. USDA had the chance to do the right thing and use designated contingency funds but rejected it. When ordered to do so by the courts, they fought it all the way to the Supreme Court to keep hungry families from receiving food.

America produces the highest quality, safest, most affordable, and most abundant food, fiber, and medicine anywhere in the world. To that end, this bill provides many welcome investments.

It fully funds SNAP and WIC, replenishes the SNAP and WIC contingency funds, and fully funds cash value vouchers for fruits and vegetables for women and children.

It also helps rural America by providing $1 billion in single family direct home loans, $120 million over the House level, and funding water and wastewater programs at $446 million, both issues that Democrats tried to address in full committee.

The bill provides $1.85 billion for the Agricultural Research Service and $1.67 billion for NIFA, protecting farmers, small businesses, and families against President Trump's budget request to eliminate land grant university research and extension activities across the country.

I am also pleased to see that the bill language requires the USDA to notify Congress before canceling grants over $1 million.

The agriculture portion of this bill does make positive steps in the right direction. The bill discards many of the harmful policy riders in the House bill, yet it does not go far enough to negate House language falsely questioning the safety of Mifepristone and encouraging the FDA to explore liability protections for certain infant formula manufacturers, over which the agency has absolutely no jurisdiction whatsoever.

While the overall funding package may reopen the government for 1 month or 2, this bill does not address the breach of trust that this administration has demonstrated since January.

They have failed to follow the law, and we cannot trust that they will even execute this bill if we vote on it today.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BISHOP. They cut SNAP by 20 percent in the big, ugly bill this summer, dismantled and defunded Federal programs, fired Federal workers, and illegally ignored court orders.

This bill fails to address the healthcare crisis, and bipartisan outrage has erupted over language in this bill to pay millions of taxpayer dollars to a handful of Senators whose phone records were subpoenaed in relation to the January 6 investigation.

It is a bad bill, and I oppose it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source