Federal farm research dollars now flow to private weather companies
H.R. 4414 — Satellite-Based Agricultural Data Act · Filed by Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 15, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) to explicitly include commercial weather services as a priority funding area for agricultural research. It allows AFRI grants to fund research using data and tools from private weather companies, expanding the types of resources eligible for federal agricultural research funding.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to broaden AFRI's eligible research priorities to include commercial weather services. It is a straightforward amendment to existing agricultural research law, though it carries a subsidy signal toward private vendors.
What the text implies
- Federal research funding may flow to private weather companies (e.g., Weather Underground, Maxar, private satellite operators) without competitive procurement requirements if AFRI grants are awarded to researchers using their services.
- The amendment does not specify cost-sharing, performance standards, or data-ownership terms, leaving unclear whether taxpayer-funded research data becomes proprietary to commercial vendors.
- Expansion of AFRI funding to commercial weather services may crowd out funding for other agricultural research priorities or create dependency on private vendors for public research infrastructure.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens may benefit from improved agricultural research using better weather data, potentially leading to more resilient crops and food security. However, the bill directs federal research funding toward private commercial weather services, creating a subsidy mechanism that enriches private vendors without clear public-interest safeguards or competitive bidding requirements.
Who stands to gain
- commercial weather service providers
- private satellite and meteorological data companies
- agricultural technology vendors offering weather-integrated tools
Named in the bill
Department of Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), Competitive, Special, and Facilities Research Grant Act, commercial weather services sector
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 2 Republicans.
- Jul 15, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jul 15, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Agriculture · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $60,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 1 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 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Brittany Pettersen, the sponsor, reported $1,054,365 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Tomorrow.io — $60,000 on 3 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jun 25, 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 (367 characters) on May 20, 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 Jun 25, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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