An amendment that would establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund related to improving prevention and treatment measures to mitigate agricultural impacts from virus outbreaks was approved today. Offering the bipartisan amendment to the fiscal year 2016 Senate Budget Resolution were Senators John Boozman (R-AR), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Tom Carper, (D-DE) and Chris Coons (D-DE). The amendment would support vaccine development or research on migratory patterns, including surveillance of infected migratory birds and modeling to predict the path of the virus.
“Poultry is vital to Arkansas’s agriculture industry and a major contributor to our state’s economy,” Senator Boozman said. “Arkansas is the second largest producer of broiler chickens in the country. This deficit neutral amendment aims to ensure the health of Arkansas’s poultry industry by focusing on disease prevention, vaccine development and research.”
“In light of the recent H2N2 outbreak in Boone county, it’s prudent to ensure the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission have the resources they need to stop both this disease and any others that may occur,” Senator Cotton said.
“Viruses, like the avian flu, can pose a huge threat to the agricultural sector and specifically the poultry industry in the First State. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and this amendment would help ensure we’re doing everything we can to prevent an outbreak, which could have economic consequences,” said Senator Carper.
“As the first cases of avian flu were found in the northwestern United States in December, and since it moved to the Midwest and central U.S., nearly a dozen countries, including China, one of our biggest export markets, have banned the import of all American poultry from anywhere in the nation. Ensuring that future outbreaks can’t have similar impacts on our economy should be an important priority for the federal government,” Senator Coons said.
The amendment says:
The Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the Senate may revise the allocations of a committee or committees, aggregates, and other appropriate levels in this resolution for one or more bills, joint resolutions, amendments, amendments between the Houses, motions, or conference reports relating to the improvement of prevention and treatment measures to mitigate agricultural impacts from an agricultural virus outbreak, such as the impacts seen from the avian influenza outbreak which may include investments in vaccine development, or research in pathway analysis, by the amounts provided in such legislation for those purposes, provided that such legislation would not increase the deficit over either the period of the total of fiscal years 2016 through 2020 or the period of the total of fiscal years 2016 through 2025.
