We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Privacy Terms and Cookie Policy
Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Ethanol industry advocates will be urging Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, or his likely successor, Tom Vilsack, to provide direct assistance to biofuel producers hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, even though a new aid package wouldn't require the payments to be made.
Farmers who were facing a steep drop in government payments in 2021 will instead see a third round of coronavirus relief payments and other producers and ag processors left out of previous aid programs this year will get help this time, under a massive stimulus package and government funding bill.
Congressional leaders reach agreement with the White House on a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package that will include a new round of aid to various agriculture sectors while also ensuring the deductibility of expenses used to get forgiveness of Paycheck Protection Program loans.
President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday introduced members of his “climate team,” six key Cabinet and White House positions that he’s charged with coordinating his administration’s plan to lower greenhouse gas emissions and address environmental justice issues.
Ethanol, corn, and biodiesel groups worry the Environmental Protection Agency will punt finalizing blending targets for the Renewable Fuel Standard to the new administration, which could delay action in a year of massive uncertainty.
Industry sources tell Agri-Pulse that top biofuel companies will be urging the incoming Biden administration to develop a federal clean fuel program to help reduce carbon emissions.
USDA is moving to make it tougher for members of some large family farm operations to get federal subsidies. USDA is publishing a rule in the Federal Register today that will require people trying to qualify for payments as active managers of a farm to provide either 25% of its management or 500 hours of time. The requirement already applied to members of partnerships.
Biofuel groups are frustrated election-year politics could be getting in the way of time-sensitive Environmental Protection Agency action on renewable fuel policy that needs to be finalized by the end of the year, and fear voter accountability in farm country will be lost if the agency delays acting before the November election.
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.
House Democrats are proposing a sweeping plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that calls for major increases in land retirement as well as conservation incentives on working lands to keep carbon in the soil.
