Congress boosts crop disease prevention funding for specialty farms
S. 4650 — Improving Pest and Disease Preparedness for Specialty Crops Act · Filed by Adam Schiff (D-CA) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jun 2, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill amends the Plant Protection Act to increase federal funding for plant pest and disease management in specialty crops. It directs the Secretary of Agriculture to prioritize funding to high-risk states, raises annual appropriations from $5 million to $12 million for one program, and adds a new $150 million annual appropriation for fiscal year 2027 onward for cooperative agreements on pest and disease prevention.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is increasing federal appropriations and directing their prioritization toward high-risk specialty crop regions. It is a straightforward public-health and agricultural-resilience measure with no private carve-outs or deregulatory elements.
What the text implies
- The $150M annual appropriation (Section 420(f)(8)) is open-ended and mandatory unless Congress repeals it, creating a structural budget commitment that may crowd other agricultural programs in future appropriations cycles.
- Prioritization to 'high-risk States' (Section 420(b)(8)) is undefined in the bill text itself — the Secretary retains discretion to define risk criteria, potentially creating regional disparities if the definition favors certain states over others.
- The bill does not specify whether the $150M is in addition to or replaces existing Section 420 funding, creating ambiguity about total program scale.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Specialty crop farmers and rural communities in high-risk states gain improved access to federal pest and disease prevention resources, reducing crop losses and supporting agricultural resilience. Consumers benefit from more stable food supply and lower commodity price volatility. The bill imposes no new restrictions on citizens and funds a public health/agricultural protection function.
Who stands to gain
- specialty crop farmers
- agricultural research institutions
- state departments of agriculture
Named in the bill
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Plant Protection Act, Section 420, specialty crop farmers, high-risk states
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Jun 2, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jun 2, 2026 — 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
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $840,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 19 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.
Adam Schiff, the sponsor, reported $54,400 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- University of California — $840,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 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 (850 characters) on Jun 16, 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 Jun 2026 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress boosts crop disease prevention funding for specialty farms” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s4650 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.