Hill doesn't give Obama all the Ag tech spending he asked for

Congress approved $400 million on Wednesday for loans to expand broadband to rural areas, far less than what the White House requested.

The amount, which is included in the fiscal 2010 appropriations bill for the Agriculture Department, falls $131.7 million, or 25 percent, less than what the Obama administration requested.

Last month, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., urged the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet to increase funding for the broadband programs run by Agriculture and the Commerce Department. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission estimated that providing broadband service to every U.S. citizen would cost between $20 billion and $350 billion.

The appropriations bill, which awaits the president's signature, also didn't fully fund what Obama asked for in the Agriculture's Office of the Chief Information Officer. The Hill appropriated $61.6 million for fiscal 2010, just slightly less than the $63.6 million the administration requested. Still, the amount nearly quadruples the CIO's $17.5 million fiscal 2008 budget, money that will be used to standardize and enhance computer security systems.

Congress didn't give nearly as much as the administration wanted for the National Animal Identification System, a program that will rely on radio frequency identification technology to tag and track all domestic food livestock so food-borne diseases can be traced to their source within 48 hours. The Hill cut $7.6 million, or more than half, from the president's request of $12.9 million and warned it may cut all finding for the program unless the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service makes "demonstrable progress" in developing and deploying the system.

Even though the service has received $142 million since fiscal 2004 for the system, only 37 percent of farms, feedlots and slaughterhouses are part of the network. This is "far below what should have been achieved given this substantial investment," the committee wrote in its report accompanying the bill. "This lack of progress will prohibit APHIS from implementing an effective national system that would provide needed animal health and livestock market benefits."