NASCOE Annual Meeting 1 Milwaukee – August , 2015

General Direction of Congress 2  House and Senate controlled by Republicans – Obama 17 months  Budget showdown looming  Annual Appropriations  Debt Limit  Sequestration  Defense vs. Non-Defense spending  Ag Committees  GIPSA  Mandatory Price Reporting  COOL  Farm Bill Oversight  California/Western States drought

FY 2016 Budget Proposals 3  President’s Budget submission  Reduced FSA salaries and expenses by $12 million  Did not recommend closing FSA County offices  Recommended eliminating our office closure and employee relocation language  Congressional Budget  Recommended increasing federal employee retirement contributions  Followed spending caps set by the Budget Control Act  Established overall spending levels for the Appropriations Committees  Budget Control Act and statutory caps  Limits spending for FY 2012 – 2021  Separate limits for Defense and Non-Defense spending

House FY 2016 Appropriations 4  House of Representatives  Subcommittee on Agriculture Appropriations Chaired by Robert Aderholt – Alabama  Draft approved by the Committee on July 8  Full House has not yet considered the Committee’s draft  FSA Salaries and Expenses  $17 million reduction compared to 2015  Language disapproving any reduction to the non-Federal work force  Prohibits funds to close county offices  Prohibits employee relocations without notification and approval by Congress  General Provisions  1 year delay of conservation compliance  Commodity certificates  Pathway forward  House floor action possible  Fiscal year ends September 30  Continuing Resolution  Omnibus vs. year long continuing resolution

Senate FY 2016 Appropriations 5  U.S. Senate  Subcommittee on Agriculture Appropriations Chaired by Jerry Moran – Kansas  Draft approved by the Committee on July 16  Draft is $3.7 billion below 2015  Full Senate has not yet considered the Committee’s draft  FSA Salaries and Expenses  $19.7 million reduction  Prohibits funds to close county offices  Prohibits employee relocations without notification and approval by Congress  General Provisions  Does not include any delay for conservation compliance  Does not include language regarding commodity certificates  Pathway forward  Senate floor action unlikely  Fiscal year ends September 30  Continuing Resolution  Omnibus vs. year long continuing resolution

Future Spending Issues  Government shutdown  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell  Previous government shutdown was not beneficial for the majority party  Sequestration  Still operating under sequestration  Significant disagreement between Republican and Democratic Caucuses 6

OPM Data Breach  April 2015 – 4.2 million employees impacted  June 2015 – over 20 million employees impacted  Second group – OPM’s background investigation database  OPM is offering 18 months of free identity theft monitoring  Don’t trust unknown s  Consider a free credit report  U.S. Senate considering cyber security legislation  Amendment offered by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)  Enhance DHS’s authority to protect the “.gov domain”  $37 million to complete planned security upgrades  $5 million for liability protection  Lifetime credit monitoring  Lifetime ID theft protection 7

USDA Initiatives 8  Acreage Reporting  2014 Farm Bill language  New hires  $100 million for Farm Bill implementation drying up  MIDAS / computer software initiatives  NASCOE Leaders negotiating multiple issues outside these major initiatives

Conclusion 9 Contact Information: Hunter Moorhead (202)  Offensive advocacy efforts  Federal appropriations  Monitoring data breach legislation  Political Action Committee – NASCOE PAC  Effectively utilizing NASCOE’s PAC to build relationships and identify Capitol Hill advocates  PAC allows us to build relationships  Our membership needs to build on current efforts to add new association members. With new members, we are expanding our footprint and identifying future NASCOE leaders.