Environment

RSS

The bipartisan infrastructure agreement that the Senate is preparing to debate includes $8.3 billion in western water infrastructure funding sought by farm groups in the region that is suffering through an extended drought. 

The House on Thursday passed a package of seven fiscal 2022 spending bills that would provide significant increases for climate measures and agricultural research while also beefing up agencies that enforce environmental and labor regulations.

Robert Bonnie, President Joe Biden’s pick to oversee USDA’s farm and conservation programs, insisted Thursday that the administration has the legal authority to use the Commodity Credit Corp. to incentivize climate-friendly farming practices.

In an attempt to get out from under the cloud of current Roundup-related litigation, Bayer announced Thursday it would stop using glyphosate in lawn and garden formulations in the U.S. starting in 2023.

Chavonda Jacobs-Young, a scientist who has been at USDA for nearly two decades, is the Biden administration’s pick to oversee the department’s research agencies.

The U.S. and European Union are vowing to look past their significant differences on how to improve agricultural production practices, strengthen food supplies and protect the environment, says USDA Deputy Secretary Jewel Bronaugh, who spoke to reporters from Rome after attending the United Nations Food Systems Pre-Summit.

Senate negotiators reached agreement with the White House on details of a bipartisan infrastructure package that would provide $550 billion in new spending for roads and bridges, waterways, rural broadband and other needs.

California‘s Proposition 12 has survived a challenge in a federal appeals court brought by the National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation, which alleged it imposed excessive costs on out-of-state pork producers who will have to comply with the law’s animal housing requirements.

On July 22, the U.S. Soybean Export Council, the United Soybean Board and the American Soybean Association announced that over 100 million metric tons of U.S. Soy Sustainability Assurance Protocol verified soy had been exported internationally in the seven years since the protocol’s conception, according to the two groups.

The House Agriculture Committee today takes up legislation that would authorize up to $8.5 billion in aid for disasters in 2020 and 2021. The nine-page bill builds on provisions of the temporary WHIP programs that started in the wake of the 2017 hurricanes and wildfires and then expanded as WHIP+ in 2018 and 2019.