Government Funding Deal Denies BIS Boost, Adds USDA to CFIUS

The compromise six-bill appropriations package that congressional negotiators unveiled March 3 contains $191 million for the Bureau of Industry and Security in FY 2024, the same as the FY 2023 enacted level and $31 million below the Biden administration’s request.

In December, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez made separate appeals urging Congress to provide more funding for BIS to handle a growing workload (see 2312040041 and 2312070074). That same month, however, key House Republicans said BIS must strengthen its export controls before they would support a budget increase for the agency (see 2312060072), and a House Foreign Affairs Committee report (see 2312070058) said BIS hasn't hired the right employees with its current funding.

Despite the rejection of the requested FY 2024 increase, the compromise legislation doesn't close the door on additional funding in the future. It directs BIS to report to Congress within 90 days of the package’s enactment “on the resources, staffing, and operational capability needed to adequately conduct licensing, review, targeting, and enforcement activities as they relate to entities under the control” of China.

Among the other Commerce Department provisions in the "minibus" package, the legislation directs BIS to report to Congress on a strategy to work with allies and partners “on a bilateral or plurilateral basis” to secure binding commitments to control foreign adversary technology that could support military modernization or human rights abuses.

The minibus also encourages BIS to identify “emerging foundational technologies” and establish "appropriate controls." It instructs BIS to work with the International Trade Administration’s U.S. Export Assistance Centers when it conducts export control outreach and education events for small and medium-sized exporters.

The package maintains a "longstanding bipartisan" rider that prohibits the use of funds to require certain export licenses for firearms, House Appropriations Committee Republicans wrote in a summary.

In the USDA portion of the minibus, the legislation adds the agriculture secretary to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to review agricultural transactions, and provides a $2.5 million increase to USDA's Office of Homeland Security to support those reviews. It also requires that CFIUS be notified of farmland purchases by China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, and it allocates a $1 million increase to USDA's Farm Production and Conservation Business Center to improve the tracking system for foreign-owned land.

Lawmakers are concerned that foreign adversaries are buying U.S. farmland near sensitive military sites to conduct spying (see 2303010036). They also worry that such purchases could jeopardize the U.S. food supply (see 2302070025).

The full House and Senate are expected to take up the minibus this week. Passage of the package, formally known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, is needed to prevent a partial government shutdown, as the agencies covered by the legislation are temporarily funded by a continuing resolution that runs through March 8.

Negotiations continue on a second six-bill appropriations package that includes the Homeland Security, State and Treasury departments. Temporary funding for those departments lasts through March 22.