Environmental justice advocates are pressing the Cal/OSHA governing board to protect farmworkers at dairies and poultry operations from bird flu exposure.
“Once again, our region finds itself at the forefront of a public health crisis,” said Jorge Luna, an advocate at Valley Voices, a community-based organization serving Kings, Tulare and Fresno counties.
Luna raised alarms at the board hearing last Thursday about the potential for mutations enabling human-to-human transmission. He pointed to a pending paper from the UC Merced Community and Labor Center that calls for hazard pay and increasing paid sick leave to 10 days per year for those workers.
Response: Eric Berg, deputy chief of the Cal/OSHA health division, said in December the agency already has “a very robust regulation on bird flu.” The transmissible disease standard has been on the books, with guidance documents available, since 2009.
Berg said he has “met with every single health department” to explain the regulation and its requirements for dairies, such as personal protective equipment and medical surveillance.
Remember: Community advocates had pushed for farmworker hazard pay at the height of the pandemic as well.
Keep in mind: State-funded UC labor centers have grown increasingly focused on advocacy. Farm groups were surprised and frustrated last year to see the UC Merced center issue talking points pushing back on a peer-reviewed study that showed the state’s ag overtime law is not benefiting farmworkers.
United Farm Workers and labor-friendly lawmakers seized on the points, raising questions about the validity of the independent UC Berkeley study. Though it swept headlines when published in 2023, the ag overtime paper did not lead to meaningful action in Sacramento.
DPR enacted 17 regulations in past decade
In its 10-year review, the Department of Pesticide Regulation reports it has completed 17 regulatory actions, ranging from a ban on chlorpyrifos to increasing fines for penalties.
DPR has also completed 13 risk assessments for potential health impacts, nine nonregulatory actions and five reevalutions. That is on top of about 30 pesticides U.S. EPA has targeted for mitigation requirements.
The department is working on seven risk assessments, six reevaluations and five mitigation actions. It is drafting four regulations, on 1,3-D, rodenticides, groundwater protection and eye wash stations. And it is reviewing three pesticides: chloropicrin, paraquat and backyard uses of neonicotinoids. At the same time, DPR is rolling out a statewide system to warn residents ahead of pesticide applications.
On day one, no tariffs
President Donald Trump has hit the ground running, but we’ll have to wait to see how far he’s going to go on one of his top priorities – trade policy. He used his inaugural address Monday to double-down on his pledge to increase tariffs. But he didn’t impose any new tariffs on the first day of his presidency, as he had previously indicated.
Trump had suggested in November that he could hike tariffs on Mexico and Canada on the first day of his presidency. He has also pledged new tariffs on Chinese goods. Canada had reportedly prepared retaliatory measures to respond immediately to any inauguration-day tariffs.But tariffs were not among the first day’s executive orders.
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The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the president instead planned to issue a day-one memo to federal agencies outlining his vision for U.S. trade policy. The memo would direct federal agencies to address trade deficits, study currency and trade actions unfavorable to the U.S. and explore the feasibility of an “external revenue service” to collect tariff revenue.
Keep in mind: A former Trump official told Agri-Pulse the delay suggested that aides are still deliberating on how best to proceed. Outlets have reported differing opinions in Trump’s inner circle over the best path forward.
“It also may be that he wants more time to make sure that anything that actually goes through is litigation proof,” the former official said. “The process helps do that.”
Read our report on Trump’s second inaugural address.
USDA’s CIO takes over as acting secretary
Gary Washington, who has been USDA’s chief information officer since 2018, is now serving as acting agriculture secretary while Brooke Rollins’ nomination moves through the Senate. Her hearing is scheduled for Thursday in the Senate Ag Committee.
Washington was formerly the CIO for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Elsewhere: Jim Payne, EPA’s deputy general counsel for environmental media and regional law offices, is serving as the agency’s acting administrator. The acting interior secretary is Walter Cruickshank, who is deputy director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Also on the first day: Trump is pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, as he did in his first term – although the official withdrawal didn’t come until after the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden.
The pledge was made in a post on the White House webpage of “President Trump’s America’s First Priorities,” which also says Trump would freeze government hiring except for essential employees and would “pause burdensome and radical regulations not yet in effect that Biden announced.”
More appointments: Rural broadband proponent Brendan Carr has been named chair of the Federal Communications Commission. Carr has also been a fierce defender of Starlink, a satellite internet subsidiary of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and decried a previous FCC decision to revoke broadband funding for the company over concerns about its ability to meet service requirements.
Andrew Ferguson is now the chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Last week, Ferguson criticized a decision made by the committee majority to authorize a lawsuit accusing equipment manufacturing giant John Deere of violating antitrust laws with its repair practices.
He said he supports the idea of right-to-repair legislation, but expressed concern about the lawsuit’s timing, which he said gives it a “stench of partisan motivation.”
Patrick Fuchs, a former Senate Transportation Committee staff member, is the new chair of the Surface Transportation Board, which is tasked with overseeing railroad competition issues.
Jeffrey Hall will continue to chair the Farm Credit Administration. Hall’s an Obama appointee and despite his term expiring in Oct. 2018, continues to serve on the board in the absence of a replacement.
Final word:
“My goodness, these animals are so cute.” — First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, describing in a CDFA promo the pets and livestock evacuated to emergency shelters due to the LA fires.
