Leaders of the Senate and House Ag committees were featured at the annual Friends of the National Arboretum dinner Tuesday night in Washington – and both were separately expressing some optimism about getting a new farm bill yet this year.
There is a “tremendous amount of work to do, but good conversations [are] going on,” Senate Ag Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told reporters. In his dinner remarks, House Ag Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., said committee leaders were "close to commencing ... good-faith negotiations where red lines can be cast aside in exchange for good ideas and policies.”
Reauthorize GSP, ag and food groups tell Congress
More than two dozen groups including corn and soybean growers are seeking reauthorization of the Generalized System of Preferences program, which allows developing countries to export certain products duty-free to the U.S.A
“Agriculture, food, and related industries contributed roughly $1.53 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product in 2023 and help support over 22 million jobs, so our united voice on this issue demonstrates the importance of making GSP reauthorization a top priority,” the groups say in a letter to House and Senate lawmakers.
GSP expired at the end of 2020, “and additional delays in reauthorization threaten to undermine the decades of advancements achieved and disrupt future market access opportunities,” they say.
GSP is “an important leverage tool to encourage countries to eliminate unjustified trade barriers and follow international standards. Participation in the GSP program should continue to be conditional on criteria that supports U.S. market access into GSP beneficiary countries,” the groups say.
RFK and Calley Means outline their MAHA plan
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., co-chair of former President Donald Trump’s transition team, gave a preview Tuesday night of what a Make America Healthy Again agenda might look like under a second Trump presidency.
During a town hall in Arizona hosted by Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action and its PAC, Kennedy at one point referred to himself as a "health czar" in a future Trump administration. He said he’s picking individuals who could oversee health and help reduce chronic diseases in America. One of those names is Calley Means, an author on metabolic health, who appeared alongside Kennedy Tuesday.
Both Kennedy and Means have a long list of things they hope to achieve in the first 90 days of a second Trump term, Kennedy said. Most of these priorities, he continued, they plan to enact with executive orders and personnel changes rather than relying on Congress.
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While most of the town hall focused on the medical and pharmaceutical industry, Means took jabs at the level of ultra-processed foods in children’s diets and said people should eat real food instead.
Means also suggested firing “every single nutrition researcher at the USDA” and ensuring there’s no conflict of interest in agency research.
Diesel parts supplier employee pleads guilty to Clean Air Act violations
An employee of a Michigan-based parts supplier has plead guilty to tampering with emissions control devices against the Clean Air Act.
Kyle Offringa, an employee of Highway and Heavy Parts LLC, admitted to conspiring with customers, who allegedly deleted emissions control hardware on heavy-duty diesel trucks. According to a DOJ release, this "significantly increased pollution emitted by those trucks but allowed them to run at higher horsepower, with greater fuel efficiency and with reduced maintenance cost."
Offringa would later reprogram onboard-diagnostic systems to bypass Clean Air Act monitoring functions for a fee of between $1,000 and $1,500. Customers were charged an additional $250 by the company, the DOJ release said.
Railroads aiming for growth amid plateauing demand
Railroad executives are aiming to grow rail traffic amid a 10-year trend of stagnating volumes, but doing so is going to require “smart" capacity investments, one industry leader told the Surface Transportation Board Tuesday.
Hiring staff, adding locomotives and expanding rail infrastructure can help railroads support more freight, Association of American Railroads CEO Ian Jeffries said at an STB hearing. But freight demand is largely driven by economic factors outside of railroads’ control and adding too much capacity could drive up operating costs and lead to inefficiencies, he added.
“Adding capacity in a smart way can enable railroads to meet changing demand and seize opportunities to grow,” he said. "Having too much unused capacity or stranded assets can drive up costs and reduce competitive viability."
But, but, but: Surface Transportation Board Chair Robert Primus pushed back on some of Jeffries’ testimony. "We’re losing to trucking,” Primus said. “We have customers leaving rail right now going to a more expensive, less safe, less efficient mode of transportation."
One shipper's gripes: Delays and unpredictable shipping schedules were among the concerns expressed at the hearing by Chris Bliley, senior vice president of regulatory affairs for Growth Energy. "While we understand that a variety of factors contribute to these rail disruptions, and that some of them may be outside of railroad control, our industry simply cannot function effectively, efficiently, or reliably for our customers without reliable rail transportation."
U.S. dairy groups upset over preliminary Colombia powdered milk ruling
Groups representing the U.S. dairy industry are voicing frustration with the Colombian government's preliminary ruling that milk powders are unduly subsidized by the U.S. government.
The U.S. Dairy Export Council and the National Milk Producers Federation criticized the decision in a release. They noted that Colombia’s preliminary findings “call for an additional 4.86% tariff” on U.S. milk powder exports.
Next steps: The Colombian government will now collect further evidence, with plans to eventually hold a public hearing. The preliminary tariff will be in effect for four months as the investigation moves forward.
Final word. “I wasn’t here, but the secretary was.” – Senate Ag Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, speaking at the annual Friends of the National Arboretum dinner, needling Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack in noting that the arboretum was established in 1927. Vilsack also spoke at the dinner.
