USDA gets $300M to breed sterile flies and stop livestock disease
S. 1751 — STOP Screwworms Act · Filed by John Cornyn (R-TX) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced May 14, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to build and operate facilities that breed sterile New World screwworm flies, which are then released to prevent wild screwworm populations from reproducing. The bill authorizes $300 million for construction and operation of these facilities in states at risk of screwworm infestation, and requires annual reporting on the threat and effectiveness of the program.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is establishing a federal breeding and dispersal program for sterile insects as a biological control method against an agricultural pest. This is a straightforward public-health and agricultural-protection measure, not a tax provision, deregulation, or private subsidy.
What the text implies
- The $300M authorization is open-ended ('to remain available until expended'), meaning funds do not lapse and could accumulate if not spent in a given fiscal year, potentially creating a large standing appropriation.
- The bill does not specify which states are 'eligible' or how the Secretary determines eligibility, leaving significant discretion in facility siting that could affect regional agricultural interests unevenly.
- Annual reporting requirement creates a public record of screwworm threat and program effectiveness, which may influence future agricultural policy or interstate trade restrictions if infestation risk is documented.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill funds a public-health and agricultural-protection measure that reduces pest-borne disease and crop/livestock damage affecting farmers and rural communities. The mechanism is transparent, the beneficiary is the general public (via agricultural protection), and there are no hidden private carve-outs or liability shields.
Who stands to gain
- agricultural producers (livestock and crop farmers in screwworm-risk states)
- USDA contractors and construction firms building/operating facilities
Named in the bill
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Animal Health Protection Act, New World screwworm fly, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, House Committee on Agriculture
Where it stands
6 cosponsors: 4 Republicans, 2 Democrats.
- May 14, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- May 14, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $120,000 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 41% of bills with at least one filing.
John Cornyn, the sponsor, reported $2,042,484 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Dallas Safari Club — $100,000 on 2 filings
- New York Farm Bureau Inc — $20,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 11, 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 (2,086 characters) on Aug 17, 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 11, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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