10. Department of Agriculture · Notable · Needs Congress
Repeal the Agriculture Secretary's CCC Section 5 discretionary authority
Printed page 295 10. Department of Agriculture
“Ideally, Congress would repeal the Secretary’s discretionary authority under section 5 of the Charter Act. There is no reason to maintain such authority.”
What has happened
- Not started
No bill in the 119th Congress touches section 5 of the CCC Charter Act except to widen it: the House-passed farm bill (H.R. 7567, 224-200 on 2026-04-30) contains Sec. 1012, "Restoration of tobacco as agricultural commodity in Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act", which strikes "(other than tobacco)" from section 5 each place it appears — an expansion of the same discretion. Meanwhile the executive used the authority for $11 billion in Farmer Bridge Assistance payments (CCC final rule, 2026-02-23) and again for the specialty-crop program (2026-06-01). Bill-title searches over the 119th-Congress Corpus for "Commodity Credit", "Charter Act" and "slush" return only an unrelated biofuel-feedstock amendment (H.R. 8762, referred to committee) and a family of settlement-"slush fund" bills with no CCC content. Cluster B (CCC Charter Act section 5) in `docs/research/ch-10.md`, round 3 ticket 09 batch 09c, records the queries.
- H.R. 7567, Farm, Food, and National Security Act, engrossed in the House 2026-04-30 — Sec. 1012 widens CCC Charter Act section 5 by restoring tobacco as a covered commodity
- CCC final rule: Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) Program — $11 billion in payments under section 5(b) of the CCC Charter Act (15 U.S.C. 714c(b))
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- One negative search covers the whole CCC cluster (#762-#767); the executive-side ask is #761.
- H.R. 8762 (“To amend the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act to exclude crops used to produce biofuel with respect to an agricultural commodity”, referred to House Agriculture 2026-05-12) is the only other Charter Act bill; it is a commodity-definition change, not a limit on section 5 discretion, and in any event a bill that has only been introduced leaves the ask not started.
- H.R. 7567’s Sec. 1012 text was read in the engrossed bill at govinfo.
- Action
- repeal
- Object
- Section 5 of the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act
- ID
- 762