§2497a Agricultural Disaster Relief Trust Fund

Summary

Creates the Agricultural Disaster Relief Trust Fund in the U.S. Treasury and pays it with amounts equal to 3.08 percent of the customs duties that went into the Treasury general fund in fiscal years 2008 through 2011 from goods entered or withdrawn for consumption under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. The Treasury must move those amounts at least once a month using its estimates and fix any differences later. If money is spent from the fund in a way the fund’s rules do not allow, no more money can be added; whether a spending is allowed is decided only by the rules in this part or in a revenue Act and not by other laws or later changes. The Treasury Secretary is the fund’s trustee and must send Congress an annual report on the fund’s past year and the next four years. Idle money may be invested only in U.S. government interest-paying securities, bought or sold at market or issue price, and any interest or sale proceeds go back into the fund. Fund money may pay obligations the United States has under 19 U.S.C. 2497 or 7 U.S.C. 1531 as those sections read on the date the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 was enacted. The fund may also receive repayable advances as needed; those advances must be paid back to the Treasury general fund with interest when the Secretary decides the fund has the money. The interest rate is the average market yield on similar U.S. marketable securities as of the close of the month before the advance, compounded yearly.