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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Friday, January 10, 2025
With President Joe Biden’s $2.7 trillion infrastructure plan in its beginning stages, western water interests and conservation groups are pushing for massive investments in water storage, conveyance and conservation projects to fix aging infrastructure and address persistent drought.
Some 300 corporations, including some industry giants in the agriculture and food industry, are calling on President Joe Biden to commit the U.S. to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 from 2005 levels.
PepsiCo is giving a big boost to efforts by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action to reduce greenhouse gases in agriculture, donating $5 million to a year-old partnership now rebranded as AgMission.
President Joe Biden is meeting with a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers today to build support for his giant $2.7 trillion infrastructure package, the American Jobs Plan.
President Joe Biden is releasing his fiscal 2022 budget proposal today, less than six months before the new budget year starts. His budget will only cover discretionary spending – those programs that are subject to annual appropriations, which includes research and rural development programs at USDA.
Republicans have so far focused their attacks on President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package on the scope of things it would fund – like home health care – that aren’t traditionally thought of as infrastructure. But Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is also drawing attention to the $174 billion the president wants to spend to shift Americans into electric vehicles.
The White House Office of Management and Budget is catching heat for a proposal to change how it defines "metropolitan" areas in a way that could leave sparsely populated counties competing with much larger ones for federal dollars.
Ranchers and environmental advocates are keeping a close eye on a decision by an Interior Department administrative law judge that found the Bureau of Land Management did not adequately analyze the impacts of grazing on greater sage-grouse habitat in Nevada.
President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan is vague about a lot of details, including how $17 billion for waterways would be spent. But Tracy Zea of the Waterways Council tells Agri-Pulse that he expects at least $3 billion to be available for inland waterway projects. That could pay for replacing two sets of aging locks and dams on the upper Mississippi River system, he said.
President Joe Biden pushed back against Republicans who are arguing his infrastructure bill has unrelated items in it. Projects related to clean water, schools and high-speed rail all qualify as infrastructure projects, he said.
