Members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a series of amendments to the Fiscal Year 2015 Agriculture Appropriations bill on Wednesday, according to the Hagstrom Report. One item they did not deal with was the controversial issue on whether to strike a provision for USDA to grant waivers from healthy school meal rules to schools documenting financial losses on their meal programs for six months. Only one amendment was passed, and that is to provide 10-million dollars for the Local and Regional Purchase program that allows the U.S. government to buy food closer to areas of crisis.
The amendment brought forward by Connecticut’s Rosa DeLauro – which would have allowed the Commodity Futures Trading Commissions to spend more money on regulatory efforts and less on information technology – was rejected. House Republican Leadership has delayed further action on the bill until at least the week of June 23rd – due to the defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in his primary earlier this week. House Republicans have set Thursday – June 19th – as the election date for a new House Majority Leader – as Cantor resigned effective July 31st.