A bipartisan group of senators is announcing a proposal today to expand Agriculture Department research on feed additives for reducing methane emissions from cattle.
The Enteric Methane Innovation Tools for Lower Emissions and Sustainable Stock (EMIT LESS) Act would expand the Agricultural Research Service’s capacity to analyze enteric methane products and practices. It would also expand training programs to familiarize farmers and ranchers with enteric-methane-reducing practices.
The bill would also add practices targeting greenhouse gas emission reductions to USDA’s Conservation Innovation Grant’s On-Farm Conservation Innovation Trials, push the agency to review and revise standards to help reduce enteric methane, and include enteric-methane-reducing products and practices in the Environmental Quality Incentives and Conservation Stewardship Programs.
Take note: A broad range of industry and environmental groups is backing the proposal, including the American Feed Industry Association, the Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Working Group, International Dairy Foods Association, McDonald’s, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Milk Producers Federation.
The bill is sponsored by Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan.
It’s not all GREET: This week’s Agri-Pulse newsletter looks at some of the key issues facing sustainable aviation fuel developers. We also dig into the potential impact of EPA’s tailpipe emission standards on ethanol demand and survey the latest congressional earmarks in USDA’s budget.
Major sugar refiner OK for now despite port closure
A major U.S. refiner of U.S. sugar could be affected by the closure of the Port of Baltimore. But ASR Group, which owns the Domino Sugar refinery at Baltimore, says the plant has six to eight weeks of raw sugar on hand. ASR also says in a statement that it has “healthy inventories” of finished sugar at warehouses across the country.
More than 575,000 metric tons of imported sugar moved through the port in 2022, according to the latest USDA data.
The main channel leading from the port into the Chesapeake Bay was cut off when a container ship rammed into and collapsed the Francis Scott Key Bridge. President Biden says the federal government should pay for the entire cost of replacing the bridge, which serves as a major bypass for East Coast truck traffic.
D.C. Circuit scolds NLRB over action against produce company
The National Labor Relations Board did not have sufficient evidence to find that an Arizona produce distributor engaged in unfair labor practices because of two employees’ pro-union activities, a federal appeals court found March 26.
Stern Produce issued a written warning to an employee who made inappropriate comments, and a supervisor sent a text message to a delivery driver telling him he wasn’t supposed to cover his inward-facing camera. The driver was eating lunch, but the NLRB’s general counsel filed a complaint saying the message “created the impression of surveillance.”
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There was insufficient evidence to support the NLRB’s conclusion that the company’s actions constituted unfair labor practices, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said.
Take note: The NLRB board’s majority and its general counsel, “at least at the time of these proceedings, should have brushed up on the ancient and wise legal doctrine de minimis non curat lex—that is, the law does not concern itself with trifles. Or should not,” the court said.
Proposed regs for meat processors please no one
The meat industry and environmental groups have submitted opposing comments on EPA’s proposed discharge limits for slaughterhouses and processing plants. The industry says EPA has underestimated the impacts of its proposal, while the green groups pressed the agency to adopt a more stringent alternative.
The Meat and Poultry Products Industry Coalition, which includes the Meat Institute, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the North American Renderers Association, says the agency’s preferred alternative would close 74 facilities, not the 16 estimated by EPA. In addition, the coalition says, “The projected number of near-term job losses associated with these facility closures would increase from nearly 17,000 estimated in the proposed rule to nearly 80,000 direct job losses from plant closures.”
A coalition of 45 animal welfare, community and environmental groups, however, calls EPA’s preferred option the weakest of three presented, and “is inconsistent with federal law — not least because it is motivated by a desire to avoid disruptions to the country’s meat supply, even though claims of past disruptions have been resoundingly debunked.”
China, US spar over Inflation Reduction Act
The Biden administration is criticizing a complaint filed by China with the World Trade Organization over electric vehicle funding in the Inflation Reduction Act. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai says China “continues to use unfair, non-market policies and practices to undermine fair competition and pursue the dominance” of its manufacturers and in global markets.”
China is contesting "discriminatory subsidies," Reuters reported. "Under the disguise of responding to climate change, reducing carbon emission and protecting environment, (these subsidies) are in fact contingent upon the purchase and use of goods from the United States, or imported from certain particular regions," the Chinese mission in Geneva said, according to the news service.
Tai says in a statement that the U.S. is “building a clean energy economy, powered by American innovators, workers, and manufacturers that will create good-paying union jobs and cut the pollution that drives climate change and environmental injustice.”
Atlanta’s Cox Farms a new player in produce
Cox Enterprises, an Atlanta-based business conglomerate that started out in newspapers, is forming a new division focused on indoor production of fruits and vegetables. Cox Farms, which owns Mucci Farms and BrightFarms, will be one of largest indoor ag operators in North America, harvesting 360 million pounds of produce a year, according to a company press release. The company says it’s “future-proofing the world of produce.”
Cox Farms’ revenue is expected to be nearly $1 billion a year.
Steve Davies and Noah Wicks contributed to this report.
