House Ag Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson is ready to move another extension of the 2018 farm bill, acknowledging to reporters Monday evening that lawmakers are unlikely to consider the measure in the lame duck session. “We’re prepared for an extension,” Thompson said.
Meanwhile, Senate Ag Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow has finally released the text of her farm bill but it’s DOA. For starters, the bill doesn’t include reference price increases of the size that Republicans want, and it contains no cuts to the nutrition title.
Take note: The legislation would force Donald Trump to get congressional approval to use the Commodity Credit Corporation to compensate farmers in the case of a new trade war or for other reasons.
Thompson, R-Pa., continues to say the CCC restriction is needed, even though Trump will be in the White House. “I found it incredible [Stabenow included the CCC provision in her draft] given the fact that I was the bad guy for proposing that now for a year, over two years,” Thompson told reporters Monday evening.
Stabenow, D-Mich., told reporters she offered to agree to the CCC restriction back in September but that Republicans stood their ground on other provisions unacceptable to her. “Then finally, we heard from some folks … at the end of October that they wanted to wait to see if President Trump was elected and what he wanted to do,” Stabenow said.
Stabenow, who’s retiring at the end of this Congress, described the bill as her “vision” for what the next farm bill should look like. The Senate Ag Committee’s top Republican, John Boozman of Arkansas, said the “11th hour partisan proposal” from Stabenow was “insulting.”
What’s next: Congress has until the end of the year to pass another extension of the 2018 farm bill. There are also some discussions about ad hoc relief for market losses.
White House out with disaster aid request
President Biden is asking Congress for a whopping $21 billion in aid to farmers who lost crops and livestock to hurricanes, drought and wildfire for 2023 and 2024. It remains to be seen how much of that request Congress will agree to cover.
The White House told Congress the 2022 losses totaled $10 billion, but lawmakers only appropriated one third of that amount. USDA subsequently angered Republicans and some farm groups by pro-rating the aid payments in a way that favored smaller scale producers.
H5N1 hit workers in California, Oregon
The Oregon Health Authority says a worker in that state who was infected with HPAI, or highly pathogenic avian influenza, has recovered. The worker was at an egg farm in Clackamas County.
The case was one of six human cases reported by health authorities on Friday, including five in California, where the number of dairy herds that have been infected with the H5N1 virus has hit 335, according to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, including 201 in the last 30 days. The California workers were on dairy farms, the CDC said.
Across the country, the total number of herds infected since the virus began spreading from Texas in March is 549 in 15 states; meanwhile, 52 people have been infected.
Hawaii hit: The virus was detected in a backyard, non-poultry flock in Honolulu County,
Hawaii, APHIS said Monday. It’s the first case of HPAI in domestic birds in Hawaii during this outbreak, which began in February 2022.
Cabinet update: Former congressman gets DOT
President-elect Donald Trump has picked former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy as transportation secretary.
“During his time in Congress, Sean was a respected voice and communicator in the Republican Conference, advocating for Fiscal Responsibility, Economic Growth, and Rural Development. Admired across the aisle, Sean worked with Democrats to clear extensive Legislative hurdles to build the largest road and bridge project in Minnesota History,” the Trump transition team said in a statement.
Carr to lead FCC under Trump
Brendan Carr, currently the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, has been tapped to chair the agency during the Trump administration.
Carr was first nominated to the FCC in 2017. He’s a well-known supporter of both 5G expansion and rural broadband access. In a statement, Shirley Bloomfield, the CEO of NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, called Carr a “champion of rural broadband who understands the importance of getting and keeping communities connected.”
Take note: Carr vigorously opposed a 2023 board decision to revoke an $885 million Rural Digital Opportunity Fund award to Starlink, a satellite internet subsidiary of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, due to concerns about the company’s ability to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service” to 640,000 rural homes and businesses.
Carr, in his dissenting opinion, argued the decision “certainly fits the Biden Administration’s pattern of regulatory harassment” against companies associated with Elon Musk, further claiming it “does not hang together when measured against the law, facts or policy."
Ag air quality task force gets new members
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has named 27 new members to its Task Force on Agricultural Air Quality Research, which advises USDA on “federally supported agricultural solutions that can help improve air quality,” the agency says.
Among the members appointed:
- Frank Mitloehner, an air quality specialist in cooperative extension in UC-Davis’s Department of Animal Science.
- Sheryl Magzamen, a professor at Colorado State University whose research focuses on understanding how social factors and environmental exposures contribute to chronic disease.
- Lara Moody, executive director, Institute for Feed Education and Research.
Final word
“Heaven help us.” – Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., when asked what she thinks about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s role in the Trump administration. Trump has picked Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the Food and Drug Administration.
“I’m going to pray a lot,” Stabenow added.
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