10. Department of Agriculture · Minor · Needs Congress
Tighten Section 5 discretion and allow court challenges
Printed page 295 10. Department of Agriculture
“Tighten the discretion within section 5 and identify ways for improper application of the Charter Act to be challenged in court.”
What has happened
- Not started
Neither limb has moved, and the record runs against both. On tightening: no bill in the 119th Congress narrows section 5, and the only measure that touches it widens it — the House-passed farm bill (H.R. 7567, 224-200 on 2026-04-30) at Sec. 1012 strikes "(other than tobacco)" from section 5 each place it appears, which enlarges the same discretion and has not been enacted in any event. On court challenges: nothing in the window creates or identifies a route by which an improper application of the Charter Act could be tested, and the largest section 5 exercise of the window was insulated from the ordinary rulemaking record rather than opened to it — CCC issued the $11 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance rule with no notice and comment, invoking the Administrative Procedure Act's exemption for "matters relating to loans, grants, benefits, and contracts" (5 U.S.C. 553(a)(2)), and made it effective immediately on a good-cause finding under the Congressional Review Act (5 U.S.C. 808(2)). 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.
- Reviewed 2026-09-01. The Status stays not started. The Status note reaches both of this Quote’s limbs rather than repeating the cluster’s shared negative from #762, and is written from the Farmer Bridge Assistance rule, read in full at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-02-23/html/2026-03456.htm (federalregister.gov refused automated reads at the time; the govinfo copy of the same document opened). Its “Regulatory Analyses” section supplies the APA 553(a)(2) and CRA 808(2) facts, which are the record on the judicial-challenge limb.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- Section 5 of the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act
- ID
- 767