Agri-Pulse Daybreak for October 20, 2016
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2016 - In the third and final
presidential debate last night, Donald Trump refused to say whether he would
accept the result of the election.
"I will look at it at the time,” Trump told moderator
Chris Wallace in an answer that is likely to dominate the campaign in coming
days. Clinton called Trump’s answer “horrifying.”
Trump’s refusal to commit to accept the election results
probably will overshadow just about everything else that was said in the rest
of the debate, which saw Trump and Clinton tangle over the Supreme Court and
immigration, among other issues.
During the opening exchanges, Trump pledged to nominate
pro-life conservatives to the court. And he suggested that Clinton was weaker
on border security than President Obama, noting that Obama had deported
“millions” of illegal immigrants.
Clinton reiterated her pledge to introduce comprehensive
immigration reform legislation during her first 100 days in office. Clinton
also insisted that she isn’t budging on her opposition to the Trans-Pacific
Partnership. “I'm against it now. I'll be against it after the election. I'll
be against it when I'm president,” she said.
Clinton surrogate: New farm bill needed ‘on time.’ It
appears that farm groups may be able to expect support from a Hillary Clinton
administration for enacting a new farm bill during the next Congress. Kathleen
Merrigan, a
former deputy agriculture secretary who represented Clinton at a Farm
Foundation forum yesterday, listed a new farm bill as a top priority
for Clinton.
“We can’t afford delay after delay. …. We need a farm bill
and we need it passed on time,” she said. Merrigan also emphasized that Clinton
supported the 2002 and 2008 farm bills when she was in the Senate. “She has a
great capacity to work across the aisle,” said Merrigan, who was armed with a
series of note cards detailing Clinton’s priorities.
Merrigan was recently at USDA where she met with Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack about transition issues, according to the secretary’s
calendar.
Sam Clovis, who is Donald Trump’s chief adviser on
agricultural policy, represented the GOP candidate at the forum. Clovis
suggested that Trump wouldn’t support attempts by House Republicans to cut
nutrition spending.
Clovis said the right way to reduce the cost of nutrition
programs is to grow the economy. He also made clear that Trump would oppose
splitting the farm bill, a position that Trump surrogates have been emphasizing
for some time, at least in private.
“We’re looking for common ground,” Clovis said. “We want to
make sure we can get a bill passed.”
Merrigan will be on Farm Journal’s AgriTalk today to discuss
what’s at stake in the election with Agri-Pulse’s Sara Wyant and Dale
Moore of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Merrigan and Clovis make the case for the candidates.
Pelosi sees tight House margin. House Democratic Leader
Nancy Pelosi is still holding out hope that her party could take over the House
in November. But even if they don’t, she says the Republican majority in the
House will only be in the single digits next year. Republicans currently
control 246 seats to 186 for the Democrats. Three are three vacancies.
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday, Pelosi says
it’s still difficult but not impossible for Democrats to overcome a natural
advantage that Republicans because of the way congressional lines were drawn
after the 2010 census.
Pelosi: Pass all spending bills. Pelosi is warning
congressional Republicans against passing some - but not all - of the fiscal
2017 spending bills in the upcoming lame duck session. Republicans say they
don’t want to enact a government-wide omnibus spending bill in December and
instead will bundle some of the bills into small packages, or minibuses.
Democrats fear that would mean that agencies such as
Interior and the EPA would be stuck with their FY16 spending levels throughout
the rest of the 2017 fiscal year, which started Oct. 1. “When you do minibuses
they have to add up to an omnibus,” Pelosi told reporters.
EPA advances RFS rule. A final rule for implementing
the Renewable Fuel Standard for 2017 has moved to the White House Office of
Management and Budget for final review, according to Bob Dinneen, president of
the Renewable Fuels Association. EPA officials wouldn’t confirm that the rule
had been sent to OMB.
In May, EPA proposed an overall renewable fuel mandate for
next year of 18.8 billion gallons with the potential for 14.8 billion gallons
of that to come from traditional corn ethanol.
NCBA: $400,000 a day at stake for cattle producers in TPP.
Colin Woodall, vice president of government affairs for National Cattlemen’s
Beef Association, says his industry will lose $400,000 a day without the
Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Woodall used the estimate while speaking yesterday on AgriTalk An
NCBA spokesman tells Agri-Pulse that the calculation comes from an
estimate produced by the consulting firm Global Agri-Trends. The estimate is
based on the advantage that Australia has over the U.S. when it comes to beef
trade with Japan.
Japan and Australia entered a free trade and economic
partnership pact in
2014, reducing Japanese tariffs on Australian beef. Japan has pledges to cut
tariffs in U.S. beef in the TPP deal.
“If we do not get this done by the end of the year, we doubt
we will ever have the opportunity to get TPP,” Woodalll said in the
interview.
USDA study: Precision ag lifts farm profits. USDA
economists say that various precision agriculture techniques, including
GPS-based mapping systems, appear to increase farm profits by a small
amount.
According to a
study by the Economic Research Service, GPS mapping boosted operating
profits by nearly 3 percent on corn farms. Net returns were about 2 percent
higher. Guidance systems raised operating profits on corn farms by 2.5 percent
and lifted net returns by 1.5 percent. Variable-rate technology raised both
operating profit and net returns by about 1 percent.
Bill Tomson contributed to this report.
#30
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