Congress faces a Friday deadline to pass a new continuing resolution to keep the government funded and to extend the 2018 farm bill for another year. Over the weekend, farm groups quickly mobilized to demand congressional leaders end a partisan impasse and reach a deal on a package of economic assistance to include in the year-end legislation.
The pressure from ag groups threatened to drain Republican support from the legislation if the aid wasn’t included.
Take note: The Farm Credit Council joined the appeals on Sunday for an aid package. In a letter to congressional leaders, the council said Farm Credit institutions “anticipate the pace of loan restructurings to increase heading into what we expect will be a challenging winter/spring loan renewal season. Without additional support from Congress, many producers will have difficulty continuing operations.”
Read our coverage of the negotiations at Agri-Pulse.com.
Meanwhile: The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is scheduled to pick a ranking member for the House Ag Committee. The committee’s current top Democrat, David Scott of Georgia, is being challenged for the position by Jim Costa of California and Angie Craig of Minnesota.
Scott has missed a series of meetings with colleagues where Costa and Craig have presented their arguments for getting the Ag Committee post.
SCOTUS grants petition on California Clean Air Act waiver
The Supreme Court is stepping into a dispute between industry groups and the federal government over California’s longstanding authority under the Clean Air Act to set its own vehicle emission standards.
EPA is planning to grant the state a waiver sometime this week, according to multiple news reports. The waiver would give the state the right to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035.
The high court granted a petition Friday from Diamond Alternative Energy along with energy and agriculture groups but restricted it to the question of whether other parties can sue over the waiver if they can show that the waiver hurts demand for their products.
Other parties that have signed on include the American Petroleum Institute and a handful of state corn and soybean associations, including the Iowa Soybean Association and Illinois Corn Growers Association.
Biofuel groups push for 45Z extension
Groups representing the biofuel industry are making the case for an extended 45Z Clean Fuel Production tax credit, in written responses to the House Ways and Means Committee. The credit is currently set to end after 2027.
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The groups also say more climate-smart farming practices should be eligible for the credit without bundling requirements.
The American Coalition for Ethanol and the Renewable Fuels Association provided the comments in response to a request for information from the committee.
RFA also suggests the committee consider extending the current suite of biofuel tax credits for a year while guidance and potential modifications to 45Z are still being debated. The credit is set to kick in on Jan. 1, but the Biden administration has yet to put out proposed guidance, which has caused some anxiety in the industry.
Meanwhile: A bipartisan group of senators is pressing EPA on its verification process for used cooking oil imports. Biofuel groups have warned that current efficiency calculations for fuel feedstocks place a higher value on UCO and tallow, which has led to an influx of imports largely from China.
In response to an earlier congressional letter, Customs and Border Protection said UCO is considered pure even when mixed with virgin vegetable oils like palm oil.
“Without a robust verification process, the credibility of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is at risk, and American farmers are likely missing out on key market opportunities,” write Iowa GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, and Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who will become ranking member of the Senate Ag Committee in 2025.
By the way: House Ag Committee member Max Miller, R-Ohio, has been awarded a coveted seat on the Ways and Means Committee in the next Congress.
USDA providing extra 3 million electronic tags to producers
USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service plans to give states an additional 3 million electronic identification (EID) tags needed to comply with a new animal disease traceability rule in fiscal 2025. Those new tags come on top of the 8 million the agency provided to producers during the last fiscal year.
The announcement comes after producer groups and lawmakers voiced concern about the costs producers in some states would have to pay for the tags necessary to comply with the regulation. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., warned USDA officials in a letter in October that while 300,000 tags would be needed by North Dakota ranchers under the rule, the agency had only committed to providing 116,000.
The rule, which went into effect Nov. 5, requires cattle and bison to have EID tags if being moved across state lines.
USDA unlocks more funding to fight screwworm
APHIS also is providing $165 million in emergency funding to protect U.S. livestock from New World screwworm. The U.S. suspended live cattle imports from Mexico last month after the flesh-eating parasite was confirmed in a case near Mexico’s southern border.
APHIS says the funding will bolster monitoring and domestic preparedness operations, as authorities from the U.S., Mexico and Central American governments attempt to create a protective barrier in the south of Mexico.
Final word
“This bipartisan, paid-for provision would increase funding for oversubscribed, voluntary, locally led conservation programs.” – the National Association of Conservation Districts, calling on legislative leaders to include a provision in the year-end spending bill to move Inflation Reduction Act conservation funding into the farm bill baseline. The group says Congress needs to pass both that provision and economic assistance for farmers.
