Republicans are meeting again today as they search for consensus on a new House speaker.
After a conference meeting Tuesday evening, several GOP members suggested the race between Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan could on for a while, given the division in the conference.
“I don’t know if by the end of tomorrow we will have a speaker. I don’t know if by the end of the week we will have a speaker,” House Ag Committee member Kat Cammack, R-Fla., told reporters Tuesday after the conference meeting with the speaker candidates.
Take note: Some conservatives are using the speaker race to maintain their push for cuts in spending.
Rep. Tom Massie, R-Ky., said Jordan pledged to move a continuing resolution that would fund the government into 2024, thereby triggering a 1% across-the-board cut in spending that was part of this year’s debt-ceiling agreement. Massie said Jordan’s goal is to force the Senate to negotiate with House Republicans.
Massie, who supports Jordan for speaker, said Scalise didn’t make a similar pledge.
Bennet, Marshall call for changes to RCPP in farm bill
Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan., are sending a letter to the leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee today calling for additional changes to the Regional Conservation Partnership Program in the farm bill.
The two lawmakers — who lead the Conservation, Climate, Forestry and Natural Resources subcommittee — say in the letter that the program has “been knotted up in bureaucratic red tape” since it was first implemented, and additional guidance issued by the agency in May “failed to address in any meaningful way easements that have been caught in red tape."
Bennet and Marshall also said Congress should provide NRCS with “clear authority” to change practice codes “on a project-by-project basis,” consider potential construction cost increases prior to awarding project funding, and extend the program to include the Water Source Protection, Forest Legacy and Forest Stewardship programs.
Vilsack to visit Virginia school, announce new grants
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will travel to Fairfax County, Virginia, today, where he will visit a local elementary school as part of National School Lunch Week and National Farm to School Month. There, he will announce two new grant opportunities plus a training and technical assistance partnership to help schools invest in nutritious school meals.
The grant programs come as part of the Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative’s School Food Systems Transformation Challenge, and “will encourage innovative partnerships between schools and producers, growers and processors to nourish students through transformation of the school food system, as well as regional efforts to nourish students, increase equity, foster a resilient supply chain and create scalable and sustainable change for school districts across the country,” a USDA spokesperson told Agri-Pulse.
In addition, Vilsack will announce that applications for the Fiscal Year 2024 Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant Program are now open through Jan. 12.
Syngenta’s Wolf on EPA Science Advisory Board
A senior fellow at Syngenta has been named to EPA’s Science Advisory Board, which provides recommendations to the EPA administrator on a wide variety of regulatory efforts.
Douglas Wolf, who has been at the seed and chemical company for 10 years, previously served in a variety of positions in 16 years at EPA, including national program manager for a “program that investigates human health and ecological effects from exposure to pesticides and toxic substances including endocrine disruptors and engineered nanomaterials,” according to his LinkedIn page.
EPA also announced that Kimberly Jones, associate provost for faculty affairs and an engineering professor at Howard University, is the new chair of the Science Advisory Board. “Jones is the first African-American chair and first chair to represent a historically black college or university,” EPA said.
BTW: The SAB has posted the final version of a newly edited letter that had raised the ire of ethanol advocates by saying that “according to the best available science, it appears there is a reasonable chance there are minimal or no climate benefits from substituting corn ethanol for gasoline or diesel.”
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The final version of the draft now advises EPA Administrator Michael Regan to “further evaluate the role the [Renewable Fuel Standard] plays in reducing GHG emissions,” saying only that “there is a vigorous scientific debate about the climate benefits from substituting corn ethanol for gasoline or diesel.”
UN official on Israel, Hamas war: The ‘whole region is at a tipping point’
United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths called for an end to the violence and for the release of hostages as the strife between Israel and Hamas continued Tuesday.
“The scale and speed of what’s unfolding in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel is bone-chilling,” he said in a tweet. “The whole region is at a tipping point.”
The UN’s World Food Program began efforts to distribute food and water to Gaza residents, but the agency stressed the difficulties in getting aid to those in need.
Lynn Hastings, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Palestine, said “access for humanitarian staff and supplies into Gaza has also been cut, and the intensity of the hostilities is limiting the ability of staff to deliver aid.”
Organic industry seeks insurance options
Organic Trade Association CEO Tom Chapman tells Agri-Pulse he appreciates the work USDA continues to do on providing insurance options for organic growers, but the group is working with lawmakers on new options.
Organic agriculture “has unique issues facing producers when seeking to obtain crop insurance, particularly related to the transitionary period from conventional to organic and the valuation of a particular crop during that period,” Chapman says. “OTA has been in contact with several members of Congress working on securing workable solutions to these issues facing domestic organic farmers and working to ensure the inability of a farmer to obtain insurance is no longer an impediment for growing organic."
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