The House voted down a measure Tuesday that would have required the USDA's commodity checkoff programs to be more transparent.
The measure failed by a vote of 377 to 49, with 13 members of Congressincluding Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Marjorie Taylor Greenenot voting, the Hill reports.
The amendment, introduced by Indiana's Victoria Spartz and Kentucky's Thomas Massie, would have required the USDA's inspector general to conduct an audit of the programs, which have been implicated in a number of scandals.
"The commodity checkoff program has gone rotten," said Massie, per the Washington Post.
"Let's get power back to local farmers and away from DC-lobbyists."
The amendment would have required the inspector general to conduct an independent audit of the programs, which are funded by a variety of groups, including the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, National Pork Producers Council, and Dairy Management, Inc., which lobbies for policies that hurt farmers, such as the repeal of Country-of-Origin Labeling, the Organization for Competitive Markets reports.
The groups that supported the amendment, including the Alabama Contract Poultry Growers Association and the National Dairy Producers Organization, thanked Massie and Spartz for "
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