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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Saturday, September 28, 2024
A bipartisan group of lawmakers are introducing legislation today to ensure the government keeps using U.S. commodities to provide food aid around the world. About half the funds for the Food for Peace program are currently used to purchase and deliver U.S. farm goods.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, are proposing a bill requiring the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to review foreign entities’ land purchases or leases exceeding $4 million or 320 acres of land over the past three years and adding the Agriculture Secretary as a member of the panel.
House Republicans were arguing not long ago that a deal on the debt ceiling could make it easier to pass a farm bill. Instead, many conservatives are angry over the debt agreement and demanding cuts to nutrition assistance and other programs that could delay the development of a new farm bill and even threaten its passage.
That didn’t last long. Just two weeks after Congress passed the debt ceiling agreement, the fiscal 2024 spending process is getting off to a rocky start.
The House Appropriations Committee today will take up a fiscal 2023 funding bill for USDA and FDA that was delayed during the negotiations over the debt ceiling.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the seven states that share the Colorado River’s water are preparing to return to the negotiating table to decide the future of the river’s water as the current guidelines governing drought-related water cuts nears its 2026 expiration.
USDA is distributing almost $714 million for broadband connectivity projects through the fourth round of the ReConnect Program, an announcement that will direct loan and grant funding to 33 projects across the country.