U.S. House members are back in D.C. today facing possible votes this week on a tax bill that includes some tax breaks important to farmers and ranchers.
Ahead of the pending floor debate, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., has been trying to allay GOP concerns that the bill could help President Biden’s political campaign or benefit illegal immigrants.
The bill includes an expansion of the child tax credit as well as several business tax provisions, including higher limits for the Section 179 expensing allowance and restoration of 100% bonus depreciation.
The Ways and Means committee issued statements Friday defending the bill, and Smith addressed the child tax credit in social media. In posts on X, Smith maintained that the proposal encourages work and “provides no special loopholes for illegal immigrants. It still requires a Social Security number to claim the child tax credit.”
For more on the tax bill and this week’s D.C.. agenda, read our Washington Week Ahead.
Senators propose updates to foreign land reporting law following audit
Eleven senators are proposing changes to the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, a 1978 law that requires USDA to track foreign landholdings.
The AFIDA Improvements Act follows some recommendations in a recent Government Accountability Office report that laid out a list of challenges USDA faces in documenting foreign landholdings. Those challenges include a handbook that provides "limited instructions" on collecting information, data entry errors in agency spreadsheets, and funding constraints limiting the creation of a searchable database of foreign landholdings.
The bill would require the agriculture secretary to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States laying out data-sharing between the two entities. The measure would revise the agency's AFIDA handbook based on GAO recommendations and authorize USDA to "take such actions as are necessary" to validate the data it receives.
USDA also would be required to take some steps toward creating an online portal for filings. USDA has so far published Excel spreadsheets on its website to meet this request, but funding limitations have prevented the department from doing more without additional appropriations from Congress.
USDA’s perspective: “It’s good to see Congress recognize that, as we’ve said, any significant changes to the AFIDA process require legislative action,” USDA spokesman Allan Rodriguez told Agri-Pulse in an email. "Congress must also understand that, in order for USDA to implement many of these changes, additional funding is needed.”
APHIS proposes loosening regulations on brucella species
USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service says the removal of five agents from its Biological Select Agents and Toxins list, including three brucella species, will facilitate needed research.
APHIS says in a proposal published today that state veterinarians “have expressed concern regarding the limitation on brucellosis research because of the designation of Brucella as a select agent,” which was made in response to the Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act of 2002.
The agents proposed for removal “pose little risk to animal health or the economy because they are unlikely to spread due to modern production practices,” APHIS says in a news release. “Removing regulatory barriers will greatly improve research on improved vaccines and diagnostics, thereby improving our efforts to control these diseases in animal populations.”
Hawaiian wildfires cost producers $23.1 million, Agriculture Department estimates
The wildfires that tore through Hawaii last August caused $23.1 million in damage to local producers, according to new USDA estimates.
Five hundred acres of cropland in Maui and Hawaii counties were reported to be damaged by the wildfires, with producers of bananas, coffee, floriculture crops, taro and other specialty crops seeing $5.4 million worth of total crop losses.
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An additional 7,850 acres of pasture were damaged. Producers reported $75,000 in losses due to the death of cattle, sheep, goats, honeybee colonies, horses and alpacas.
Philadelphia jury returns $2.25 billion verdict against Bayer
Bayer has been hit with another big award in a Roundup case. Jurors in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas handed down a $2.25 billion verdict Friday against the company for negligence and failure to warn.
The plaintiff is a 49-year-old Pennsylvania man who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after using Roundup on his property for 20 years, his lawyers said.
Lawyers for the plaintiff said the unanimous verdict “was a condemnation of 50 years of misconduct by Monsanto and a declaration that its misconduct was in reckless disregard of human safety and a substantial cause of John McKivison’s cancer.” Monsanto was acquired by Bayer in 2016.
Bayer, in a statement reported by Reuters, says the jury's verdict, which includes $2 billion in punitive damages, “conflicts with the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and worldwide regulatory and scientific assessments.” The company says it believes it has “strong arguments on appeal to get this verdict overturned and the unconstitutionally excessive damage award eliminated or reduced."
China to begin accepting Argentine wheat
Argentina’s agriculture ministry says the South American country will start exporting wheat to China. The ministry says Argentina increased its wheat production by 23% for the 2023/24 marketing year.
USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service recently lowered its forecast for wheat production in China in the current marketing year by 0.8%, noting that “China aggressively purchased wheat at low prices in the fourth quarter of 2023.”
He said it. “Without our farmers, we aren’t France any longer, and we aren’t a country.” – French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, as quoted by the Financial Times, referring to protesting farmers to whom he has offered concessions.
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