Steil focused on the 'wins': Authors two amendments on vets and dairy farms

U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., will take the "wins" no matter how big or small — in this case, small.

During negotiations with the House Rules Committee, Steil authored two amendments totaling $2.5 million, that provide some funding for dairy farmers and veteran suicide prevention.

On veteran suicide, Steil's amendment, if signed into law, would mandate that the Department of Veteran Affairs dedicate at least $1 million toward preventing veteran suicide, which includes treatment for mental health.

"So this makes it explicit … it's Congress saying we need a minimum of $1 million for suicide prevention efforts," Steil said. "I think we need to put a little bit more of a spotlight on that issue and then be able to look and see exactly what we're doing, what results we're getting from the Department of Veterans Affairs."

Originally Steil wanted the funding to be more. An earlier amendment would have asked to keep funding levels the same for suicide prevention and treatment programs, which would have maintained funding $1.5 billion toward that effort.

But that language did not make it through the Rules Committee, which decides which amendments are germane and can move to the floor.

After discussions with the committee as to the best way to go about including language that would pass, Steil proposed to mandate spending a minimum $1 million for suicide prevention and treatment programs.

"I'd like to see it be larger, but I wouldn't have been able to get it to the floor for a vote," Steil said. "You're kind of stuck within the process … you take your wins where you can, and I took the win."

To be clear, the Department of Veterans Affairs does spend millions of dollars on suicide prevention and treatment, but Steil said the secretary of Veterans Affairs has "broad latitude on how to spend some of the budget."

"There's been work done in this area, for sure," Steil said. "But what this does is it shifts and puts a real focus from Congress as it relates to the budget, that we're looking of a minimum of $1 million as it relates to those efforts."

On dairy farms

The amendment on dairy farms, Steil said, would provide business developments to "help dairy farmers struggling with low milk prices" to use the milk that has been produced to make other dairy items.

"You got to maintain profitability or family farms are sold," Steil said. "One of the ways to do that is specialty cheeses and finding other products that (farmers) can use some of the dairy to diversify some of the products that they're selling."

Steil said the amendment on the dairy farms is budget-neutral.

"It strikes $1.5 million from elsewhere," Steil said. "The Appropriations Committee recommended a cut for that program, and I worked with my colleagues to make sure that it would come back and remain this year."

If passed, it would provide funding in fiscal year 2019 to help dairy businesses in development, production, marketing and distribution of dairy products, by providing technical assistance and grants to dairy businesses.

In the broad scheme of the federal budget, which deals with dollar amounts in the trillions, a few million dollars here and there are just drops in the bucket.

But Steil said he is focused on being productive no matter the impact.

"To get anything done right now, you got to have Democrat and Republican votes," Steil said. "These are small wins. This isn't the transformative change that I think in many ways our country needs, but this is areas where we're able to make a difference and be impactful on these spending bills."