Federal poultry bailout removes all oversight from compensation decisions
H.R. 1376 — Healthy Poultry Assistance and Indemnification Act of 2025 · Filed by Jim Costa (D-CA) · 14 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 14, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the federal government to compensate poultry farmers whose flocks are prohibited from being raised or kept in areas designated as disease control zones by the USDA. Compensation is calculated based on the average income from the farmer's five most recent flocks, multiplied by the number of flocks they were blocked from raising, minus any state or other compensation already received. Payments must be made within 60 days of request.
Why we flagged it
The bill is fundamentally a compensation mechanism for poultry farmers affected by disease control quarantines—a legitimate disaster-relief function. However, the non-reviewable determination clause and reliance on self-reported historical income introduce governance weaknesses that elevate it beyond routine appropriations.
What the text implies
- The 'final and not subject to judicial review' language removes all external oversight of compensation calculations, creating a unilateral USDA determination process with no appeal mechanism—unusual for federal payments and potentially vulnerable to administrative error or inconsistent application.
- Compensation is based on 'average income from 5 most recent flocks,' which relies entirely on farmer self-reporting and historical records; no audit or verification mechanism is specified, creating potential for inflated claims.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
poultry producers and integrators; large-scale egg and meat poultry operations; agricultural commodity traders