Food aid moves from humanitarian agency to agriculture department
H.R. 1207 — To transfer the functions, duties, responsibilities, assets, liabilities, orders, determinations, rules, regulations, permits, grants, loans, contracts, agreements, certificates, licenses, and privileges of the United States Agency for International Development relating to implementing and administering the Food for Peace Act to the Department of Agriculture. · Filed by Tracey Mann (R-KS) · 44 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 11, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill transfers all Food for Peace Act functions from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to the Department of Agriculture, moving responsibility for administering food aid programs, grants, loans, and contracts from a foreign-aid agency to an agricultural department. The Secretary of Agriculture gains all USAID's Food for Peace authorities, assets, and liabilities, and may immediately rewrite regulations to implement the transfer.
Why we flagged it
The bill is a straightforward agency-function transfer, but the shift from USAID (foreign aid) to USDA (agriculture) signals a reorientation of food-aid policy toward agricultural export and domestic farm interests rather than humanitarian need.
What the text implies
- Moving food aid from USAID to USDA may subordinate humanitarian food-security goals to U.S. agricultural export promotion and domestic farm-subsidy alignment, potentially reducing aid to countries with lower strategic agricultural value.
- The Secretary of Agriculture gains authority to immediately rewrite Food for Peace regulations as 'interim final rules' without standard notice-and-comment rulemaking, bypassing public input on changes to international food-aid policy.
- Consolidating food aid under USDA may reduce coordination with State Department foreign-policy objectives, as the bill only requires 'consultation' with State on Title II programs, not joint authority or veto power.
- The transfer includes all USAID liabilities and contracts related to Food for Peace, potentially shifting legal and financial exposure from a foreign-aid agency to an agricultural department with different institutional priorities.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens may benefit if consolidating food-aid administration reduces bureaucratic overhead and improves program efficiency. However, moving international food assistance from a foreign-aid agency to an agriculture department may subordinate humanitarian food-security goals to domestic farm-subsidy and export-promotion interests, potentially reducing aid to countries with less strategic agricultural value to U.S. producers.
Who stands to gain
- U.S. agricultural exporters and commodity producers (potential increase in food-aid tied to domestic
- Agricultural equipment and input suppliers (if USDA prioritizes domestic farm productivity in food-a
Named in the bill
USAID (United States Agency for International Development), Department of Agriculture (USDA), Secretary of Agriculture, Food for Peace Act, Famine Early Warning Systems Network, Department of State
Where it stands
44 cosponsors: 43 Republicans, 1 Democrats.
- Feb 11, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 11, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Agriculture and House Committee on Foreign Affairs · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Agriculture, for a period…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
12 lobbying clients named this bill on 19 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,783,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 5 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 93% of bills with at least one filing.
Tracey Mann, the sponsor, reported $639,250 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association — $500,000 on 2 filings
- Liberty Maritime Corporation — $320,000 on 1 filing
- USA Rice Federation — $220,000 on 2 filings
- North American Millers' Association — $190,000 on 3 filings
- Care Action Now, Inc. — $133,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,652 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 22, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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