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Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
The Senate begins its impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump this week even as his successor pushes lawmakers to meet his demands for a $1.9 trillion package of coronavirus relief measures.
Tom Vilsack, set to take a historic second stint as agriculture secretary, is pledging to make climate change and racial justice top priorities for the Agriculture Department, assuring senators that he understands the times and challenges have changed since he left the government four years ago.
Tom Vilsack gets a chance this week to outline his vision for a second stint at the Agriculture Department in which he will be expected to play a major role in carrying out President Joe Biden’s climate policy and racial justice agenda.
The Senate is set to confirm Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen while formally starting an impeachment trial that threatens to slow down progress on President Joe Biden’s agenda.
President-elect Joe Biden is out with a $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal that includes some significant new food assistance provisions, including an extension through the summer of the 15% increase in SNAP benefits provided by the COVID aid package enacted in December.
President Donald Trump announced via a video that he doesn't support the sweeping year-end bill combining new coronavirus relief with fiscal 2021 government funding.
Congress faces a midnight deadline to keep the government funded. As of Thursday evening, it wasn’t clear whether lawmakers would be asked to pass a very short-term stopgap spending bill to provide the time they need to pass a massive bill that would include both government funding for fiscal 2021 as well as a big new COVID aid package.
Major farm groups are working to ensure that a new coronavirus relief package provides more specific directions to the Agriculture Department on how to distribute $20 billion in additional relief.
A key senator involved in developing the Republican coronavirus relief package for farmers defended the broad authority it gives to USDA to spend $20 billion in farm aid, but he said the Trump administration likely will need to provide assurances about how the money will be spent.
The Democratic Party’s draft 2020 platform calls for directing more farm subsidies to small and medium-size farms while making the agriculture sector the first in the first world to eliminate net carbon emissions.
