{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-baldwin-votes-to-support-veterans-wisconsin-farmers-and-rural-communities-and-affordable-housing", "Senator Baldwin Votes to Support Veterans, Wisconsin Farmers and Rural Communities, and Affordable Housing", "2023-11-01", "2023", "2023-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "WI", "Tammy Baldwin", "B001230", "www.baldwin.senate.gov", "baldwin", "https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Today, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined an overwhelming bipartisan majority of her colleagues to pass a package of three funding bills that support veterans, invest in agriculture and rural communities, and expand access to affordable housing. By a vote of 82-15, the U.S. Senate voted to advance the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriation bills for Fiscal Year 2024.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m proud to have worked with my Republican and Democratic colleagues to meet the needs of Wisconsin families, veterans, and farmers. By working in a bipartisan fashion, the Senate came together to advance legislation that will help grow our economy, lower costs for working families, and address some of our toughest challenges, all while abiding by the budget deal that the Senate, House, and White House agreed on,\u201d said Senator Baldwin. \u201cI was proud to champion provisions in this package that deliver for our farming and rural communities \u2013 investing in Wisconsin\u2019s dairy industry, providing mental health resources for those struggling, and scrutinizing foreign investments in our agricultural land. I also fought hard to include more resources for veterans \u2013 creating a Veterans Crisis Lifeline to help our heroes grappling with mental health challenges, supporting county veterans service officers, and investing in VA facilities. Our bipartisan bill will help expand access to affordable housing and make critical investments in our infrastructure to ensure families can travel safely and support Wisconsin businesses get their products to market.\u201d\n\nIncluded in the legislation is:\n\nAgriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies\n\nFarmland Security Act: The legislation includes $1 million to support the Senator\u2019s legislation that increases scrutiny over foreign investments in American agricultural land. The funding will support a new data system that will help provide the American people and Congress with information on the impacts foreign investments have on family farms, rural communities, and the domestic food supply.\n\nDairy Business Innovation Initiative: The bill includes continued investment in the program that Senator Baldwin created in 2018 that provides technical assistance and grants to dairy farmers and businesses across Wisconsin, supporting them with business plan development, marketing, and branding, as well as increasing access to innovative production and processing techniques to support the development of value-added products.\n\nFarm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network: Senator Baldwin secured increased funding for the program that she helped create to address the mental health epidemic in rural America and expand access to critical mental health support and resources for our nation\u2019s agricultural communities. Earlier this year, Senator Baldwin led her colleagues in a bipartisan letter to the Appropriations Committee seeking robust funding for the program.\n\nInstitute for Rural Partnerships (IRP): The bill includes continued investment for IRP, of which Wisconsin is a direct recipient through the work of the University of Wisconsin Rural Partnerships Institute in addressing challenges unique to rural communities. Most recently, the Institute announced a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment in a weather station network that will provide real-time Wisconsin weather data. The project is vital for communities across the state impacted by increasingly common severe weather events, in particular, Wisconsin\u2019s robust agriculture community.\n\nRural Development: The bill provides $1.6 billion for rental assistance to ensure rural Americans have access to safe and affordable housing. It would also decouple rental assistance from Multifamily Direct Loans, which will prevent thousands of low-income families from losing rental assistance.\n\nNutrition: The bill delivers critical new funding to ensure women, infants, and children can get the nutrition they need, and it protects vital nutrition assistance programs for families across the country with tight budgets.\n\nWIC: The bill includes $6.3 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)\u2014a $615 million increase over FY 2023 that meets the President\u2019s budget request. These new resources will ensure over 6 million women, infants, and children can get the nutrition they need.\n\nSNAP: The bill fully funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to serve an estimated 42 million people per month\u2014and does not include any new restrictions on eligibility.\n\nChild Nutrition: The bill fully funds Child Nutrition Programs to ensure schools can continue to serve healthy meals. In 2024, this funding will help serve an estimated 5 billion lunches and 2.6 billion breakfasts to kids across the country.\n\nAgriculture Research: Agricultural research plays a vital role in supporting farmers and ranchers, particularly as they continue to respond to a changing climate. The bill provides $1.792 billion\u2014a $48.6 million increase\u2014for the Agricultural Research Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s (USDA) premiere in-house research agency.\n\nFood and Drug Administration (FDA): The bill provides a $20 million increase in funding for the FDA to carry out its critical mission to keep families healthy and safe. More specifically, it provides an additional $7 million to conduct oversight of cosmetics for the first time ever, $3.75 million to strengthen FDA\u2019s food safety programs, $3.75 million to address device shortages and supply chain issues, $3 million to advance neuroscience research, and $2.5 million for ALS research.\n\nFood Safety: The bill provides $1.205 billion for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), an increase of $46.7 million. This funding will help ensure FSIS can continue its vital work protecting America\u2019s food supply without being forced to reduce its staffing levels, which would jeopardize food safety and exacerbate supply chain delays.\n\nInternational Food Aid: The bill provides $1.8 billion in funding for the Food for Peace program and $248.3 million for the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program. As the world experiences an unprecedented hunger crisis, this funding will continue to combat hunger abroad\u2014and save lives.\n\nConservation: The bill protects funding for Conservation Technical Assistance, which supports voluntary conservation practices on private land.\n\nThe Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Act fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill provides the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and related agencies $135.3 billion in non-defense discretionary funding, as well as $161.7 billion in mandatory funding, to fulfill our nation\u2019s obligations to our veterans. The bill further provides advance appropriations for our veterans in fiscal year 2025, including $112.6 billion for veterans\u2019 medical care and $193 billion for veterans\u2019 benefits. The bill also includes $19.1 billion in defense spending for military construction and family housing this year\u2014an increase of $70 million over fiscal year 2023\u2014to upgrade and modernize critical infrastructure and support military families.\n\nMilitary Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Act\n\nSupport for Veterans: The package that passed the Senate fully funds veterans\u2019 medical care and benefits, including:\n\nMental Health, 988 and Crisis Intervention: The Senate package includes Senator Baldwin\u2019s request of $300.5 million for the Veterans Crisis Line in support of the program\u2019s suicide prevention and crisis intervention services. In total, the funding package includes a $2.3 billion increase in funding over the previous year to get veterans the mental health care they deserve.\n\nSupport to County and Tribal Veterans Service Officers: The legislation includes Senator Baldwin\u2019s request for report language directing the VA to develop a plan for facilitating collaboration between county, state, and Tribal Veterans Service Officers, VHA facilities and VBA offices to improve services to all veterans and proactively identify barriers to care or indications that care is substandard.\n\nVeteran Caregiving, Women\u2019s Health, and Childcare: Provides $557 million more to strengthen VA\u2019s caregiver program and reach more families, $439 million more to support women veterans\u2019 health care, and $23 million to expand the Child Care Pilot Program to eliminate barriers for veterans in need of child care while attending medical appointments.\n\nVA Facilities: Boosts investments in VA facilities to deliver better care for veterans across the country.\n\nTraumatic Brain Injury: Invests $938 million in VA Medical and Prosthetic Research to advance efforts related to Traumatic Brain Injury, PFAS exposure, and more.\n\nStrengthens National Security: The Senate-passed legislation provides a historic funding level to modernize critical military infrastructure and build our presence in key regions around the world, including:\n\nInfrastructure Improvements: Boosts funding to support critical maintenance projects, upgrade our shipyards, and improve the resiliency of our bases and military infrastructure, particularly in the face climate-driven threats.\n\nDeterring Adversaries: Provides more than $1.8 billion in funding for projects in the Indo-Pacific Command to support the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, delivering $300 million for projects to support the European Deterrence Initiative, and fully funding the U.S. commitment to support the NATO Security Investment Program.\n\nDelivers for Servicemembers and Military Families:\n\nHousing: Delivers new resources to construct new family housing, maintain and upgrade existing units, and strengthen oversight of privatized housing.\n\nChild Care: Increases funding for child development centers to expand access to child care for military families.\n\nPFAS and Toxic Clean Up: In accordance with a request from Senator Baldwin, the legislation provides additional funding to address the threat posed by PFAS and to support environmental remediation at Base Realignment and Closure installations.\n\nTransportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies\n\nIncreasing Affordable Housing and Addressing Homelessness\n\nIncreasing Affordable Housing: Increasing the supply of affordable housing nationwide with funding to build 10,000 new rental and homebuyer units.\n\nLower Housing Costs: Extending funding for the \u201cYes In My Back Yard\u201d grant program to support efforts to increase our nation\u2019s housing supply and lower housing costs through state and local zoning changes.\n\nAddressing Homelessness: Delivering $275 million in new funding for Homeless Assistance Grants to help address homelessness in communities across the country and providing new resources to better connect people experiencing homelessness with health care services.\n\nTransportation\n\nFAA: Providing $1.255 billion in new resources for the FAA to address the shortage of air traffic controllers, improve safety, reduce flight delays, and increase efficiency.\n\nImproving Reliable Rail Service: Addressing rail safety deficiencies after recent derailments, disasters, and close calls with $32 million in new funding for the Federal Railroad Administration to improve safety and operations nationwide. This also bill includes around $47.5 million for the Surface Transportation Board\u2019s operations, an increase of $6 million above FY23, which regulates and decides disputes involving railroad rates.\n\nHelping Communities Respond to Extreme Weather: The PROTECT Program provides funding to ensure surface transportation resilience to natural hazards including climate change, sea level rise, flooding, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters. Senator Baldwin fought to include $450 million for the PROTECT competitive grant program and over $1.4 billion for formula funding that goes directly to states.\n\nImproving Port Infrastructure: Maintains funding for the MARAD Port Infrastructure Development Grants program at $212 million, grants awarded on a competitive basis to projects that improve the safety, efficiency, or reliability of the movement of goods into, out of, around, or within a port.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T01:01:09Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-baldwin-votes-to-support-veterans-wisconsin-farmers-and-rural-communities-and-affordable-housing"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3073720037937164, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}