{ "id": "R44606", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "R", "number": "R44606", "active": true, "source": "CRSReports.Congress.gov, EveryCRSReport.com", "versions": [ { "source_dir": "crsreports.congress.gov", "title": "The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)", "retrieved": "2021-02-11T04:03:50.076534", "id": "R44606_6_2021-01-14", "formats": [ { "filename": "files/2021-01-14_R44606_339bdd0921f2f6ef17867a6a1d7f5027ffe47508.pdf", "format": "PDF", "url": "https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44606/6", "sha1": "339bdd0921f2f6ef17867a6a1d7f5027ffe47508" }, { "format": "HTML", "filename": "files/2021-01-14_R44606_339bdd0921f2f6ef17867a6a1d7f5027ffe47508.html" } ], "date": "2021-01-14", "summary": null, "source": "CRSReports.Congress.gov", "typeId": "R", "active": true, "sourceLink": "https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/details?prodcode=R44606", "type": "CRS Report" }, { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 604373, "date": "2019-09-04", "retrieved": "2019-09-04T22:09:18.569375", "title": "The Commodity Credit Corporation: In Brief", "summary": "The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) has served as a mandatory funding mechanism for agricultural programs since 1933. The CCC Charter Act enables the CCC to broadly support the U.S. agriculture industry through authorized programs including commodity and income support, natural resources conservation, export promotion, international food aid, disaster assistance, agricultural research, and bioenergy development. \nWhile CCC is authorized to carry out a number of activities, it has no staff of its own. Rather, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees and facilities carry out all of its activities. CCC is overseen by the Secretary of Agriculture and a board of directors, which are also USDA officials. CCC has $100 million in capital stock; buys, owns, sells, and donates commodity stocks; and provides loans to farmers and ranchers. It has a permanent indefinite borrowing authority of $30 billion from the U.S. Treasury. By law, it receives an annual appropriation equal to the amount of the previous year\u2019s net realized loss. This replenishes its borrowing authority from the Treasury and allows it to cover authorized expenditures that will not be recovered.\nThe majority of CCC activities are authorized through omnibus farm bills\u2014most recently the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-334). Farm bill authorization allows programs to utilize CCC\u2019s borrowing authority, thereby dispensing with the need for an annual appropriation for individual programs. The use of this mandatory authority has expanded over time and has led to tension between authorizing committees and appropriation committees in previous fiscal years. \nThe Charter Act also grants the Secretary of Agriculture broad powers and discretion in the use of the CCC. This discretionary use was restricted in annual appropriations legislation from FY2012 through FY2017, effectively reducing the Secretary\u2019s discretionary use of CCC. The FY2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 115-124) did not include these restrictions, which has allowed the Trump Administration to use CCC\u2019s authority to address market impacts from China\u2019s retaliatory tariffs on certain U.S. agricultural commodities in 2018 and 2019.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "https://www.crs.gov/Reports/R44606", "sha1": "249a5aff66d57ae1eadc5f49709adbf867c996cc", "filename": "files/20190904_R44606_249a5aff66d57ae1eadc5f49709adbf867c996cc.html", "images": { "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R44606_files&id=/0.png": "files/20190904_R44606_images_ae4be81a23c8b9db4c8386d8937fc81315bffaad.png", "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R44606_files&id=/1.png": "files/20190904_R44606_images_6456fcfd38b7dc3d49c6f33745609e5b17312b92.png" } }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "https://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R44606", "sha1": "087a0ffd70aa3114b1b91c9829649c35b31e9a9b", "filename": "files/20190904_R44606_087a0ffd70aa3114b1b91c9829649c35b31e9a9b.pdf", "images": {} } ], "topics": [ { "source": "IBCList", "id": 4830, "name": "Agriculture Budget & Appropriations" }, { "source": "IBCList", "id": 4919, "name": "Farm Support" } ] }, { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 580283, "date": "2018-04-19", "retrieved": "2018-04-24T13:07:18.086794", "title": "The Commodity Credit Corporation: In Brief", "summary": "The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) has served as a mandatory funding mechanism for agricultural programs since 1933. The CCC Charter Act enables the CCC to broadly support the U.S. agriculture industry through authorized programs including commodity and income support, natural resources conservation, export promotion, international food aid, disaster assistance, agricultural research, and bioenergy development. \nWhile CCC is authorized to carry out a number of activities, it has no staff of its own. CCC is overseen by the Secretary of Agriculture and a board of directors, which are also U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials. CCC has $100 million in capital stock; buys, owns, sells, and donates commodity stocks; and provides loans to farmers and ranchers. It has a permanent indefinite borrowing authority of $30 billion from the U.S. Treasury. By law, it receives an annual appropriation equal to the amount of the previous year\u2019s net realized loss. This replenishes its borrowing authority from the Treasury and allows it to cover authorized expenditures that will not be recovered.\nThe majority of CCC activities are authorized through omnibus farm bills\u2014most recently the Agricultural Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-79). Farm bill authorization allows programs to utilize CCC\u2019s borrowing authority, thereby dispensing with the need for an annual appropriation for individual programs. The use of this mandatory authority has expanded over time and has led to tension between authorizing committees and appropriation committees. As Congress turns its attention to the next farm bill, many wonder whether CCC will be used to fund other areas of agriculture policy or whether spending will be restricted similarly to recent limiting provisions in annual appropriations laws.\nThe Charter Act also grants the Secretary of Agriculture broad powers and discretion in the use of the CCC. Under the Obama Administration, then Secretary Vilsack used the CCC in FY2015 to fund a bioenergy initiative, which highlighted this discretion and created concern among some in Congress. Restrictions in annual appropriations legislation from FY2012 through FY2017 reduced the Secretary\u2019s use of CCC but not so much as to prevent the previous Administration from extending support for cotton and dairy marketing assistance. The FY2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 115-124) removed these restrictions, resulting in officials in the Trump Administration citing the use of CCC\u2019s authority as a possible option for addressing market impacts from China\u2019s retaliatory tariffs on certain U.S. agricultural commodities in early 2018.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R44606", "sha1": "13621a048c5d6219ce87eb8a1fa279d4b8991eb0", "filename": "files/20180419_R44606_13621a048c5d6219ce87eb8a1fa279d4b8991eb0.html", "images": { "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R44606_files&id=/0.png": "files/20180419_R44606_images_ad0d69ce6f8acd3f3d068029842a79c78dfe3fbb.png", "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R44606_files&id=/1.png": "files/20180419_R44606_images_3e819f2a1f8ece3be9f6191158c5397d2354486d.png" } }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R44606", "sha1": "961d275b3fedd3c3f1afcaa724609083e2d20317", "filename": "files/20180419_R44606_961d275b3fedd3c3f1afcaa724609083e2d20317.pdf", "images": {} } ], "topics": [ { "source": "IBCList", "id": 4830, "name": "Agriculture Budget & Appropriations" }, { "source": "IBCList", "id": 4919, "name": "Farm Support" } ] }, { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 455336, "date": "2016-08-29", "retrieved": "2016-11-28T21:42:34.054277", "title": "The Commodity Credit Corporation: In Brief", "summary": "The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) has served as a mandatory funding mechanism for agricultural programs since 1933. The CCC Charter Act enables it to broadly support the U.S. agriculture industry through authorized programs including commodity and income support, natural resources conservation, export promotion, international food aid, disaster assistance, agricultural research, and bioenergy development. \nWhile CCC is authorized to carry out a number of activities, it has no staff of its own. CCC is overseen by the Secretary of Agriculture and a board of directors, which are also U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials. CCC has $100 million in capital stock; buys, owns, sells, and donates commodity stocks; and provides loans for to farmer and ranchers. It has a permanent indefinite borrowing authority of $30 billion from the U.S. Treasury. By law, it receives an annual appropriation equal to the amount of the previous year\u2019s net realized loss. This replenishes its borrowing authority from the Treasury and allows it to cover authorized expenditures that will not be recovered.\nThe majority of CCC activities are authorized through omnibus farm bills\u2014most recently the Agricultural Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-79). Farm bill authorization allows programs to utilize CCC\u2019s borrowing authority, thereby not requiring an annual appropriation for individual programs. The use of this mandatory authority has expanded over time and has led to tension between authorizing committees (namely the House and Senate Agriculture Committees) and appropriation committees. Ultimately, it is Congress that passes legislation and not individual committees. As Congress looks to debate the next farm bill, many wonder whether CCC will be used to fund other areas of agriculture policy or whether spending will be restricted similar to recent limiting provisions in annual appropriations.\nThe Charter Act also grants the Secretary of Agriculture broad powers and discretion in the use of CCC. Recently, the Secretary\u2019s use of CCC to fund a bioenergy initiative has highlighted this discretion and created concern in Congress. Restrictions in annual appropriation legislation have reduced the Secretary\u2019s use of CCC but not so much as to prevent the funding of recent cotton and dairy marketing assistance.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R44606", "sha1": "cd47a0f9164b913a51d9b0b68864647f0a22e087", "filename": "files/20160829_R44606_cd47a0f9164b913a51d9b0b68864647f0a22e087.html", "images": null }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R44606", "sha1": "da36e6e6b5a5c5cac8edfb3403e028ef9e12b88f", "filename": "files/20160829_R44606_da36e6e6b5a5c5cac8edfb3403e028ef9e12b88f.pdf", "images": null } ], "topics": [ { "source": "IBCList", "id": 4830, "name": "Agriculture Budget & Appropriations" } ] } ], "topics": [ "Agricultural Policy" ] }